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TRIPS 



LIFE OF A LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER. 



NEW YORK : 

J. BRADBURN (Successor to M. Dooladt), 

4U WALKER STREET. 

FOLLETT, FOSTER & CO. 
1863. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, ia the jear 1860, 

By FOLLETT, FOSTER & CO., 

In the Clerk's Oface of the District Court of the United States for'tjie'SSuthem .. ^ 
District of Ohio. * 





DEDICATION. 



T O T H E 

RAILROAD MEN OF THE UNITED STATES, 

A CLASS 

WITH WHOM MY INTERESTS WERE LONG IDENTrFIED, AND WHO I EVER 

FOUND GENEROUS AND BRAVE, I DEDICATE THIS 

UNPRETENDING VOLUME. 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE 



Bravery and heroism have in all times been extolled, and 
the praises of the self-sacrificing men and women who have 
risked their own in the saving of others' lives, been faithfully 
chronicled. 

Railroad men, too long looked upon as the rougher kind of 
humanity, have been the subjects of severe condemnatior and 
reproach upon the occurrence of every disaster, while their 
skill, bravery and presence of mind have scarcely ever found a 
chronicler. The writer ventures lo assert, that if the record of 
their noble deeds were all gathered, and presented in their true 
light, it would be found that these rough, and weather-worn 
men were entitled to as high a place, and a fame as lofty, as 
has been allotted to any other class who cope with disaster. 

It has been the aim of the w^riter, who has shared their 
dangerous lot, to present a few truthful sketches, trusting that 
his labor may tend to a better knowledge of the dangers that 
are passed, by those who drive, and ride behind the Iron 
Horse. If he shall succeed in this, and make the time of his 
reader not appear misspent, he will be satisfied. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 
Running in a Fog, ------- 11 

AClose Shave, - - - ~ - - - 17 

A Collision, _-___-- 29 

Collision Extraordinary, - - - - - - 87 

Burning of the Henry Clay, - - - - - 43 

The Conductor, -------51 

Bravery of an Engineer, - - - - - - 59 

The Fireman, - - - - - - - 67 

A Dream in the " Caboose," - - • - - - 83 

The Bralieman, - - - - - - - 75 

An Unmitigated Villain, - - - - - -93 

A Proposed Race between Steam and Lightning, - - - 101 

An Abrupt Call, - - - - - - 109 

The Good Luck of being Obstinate, - - - - 115 

Human Lives v. The Dollar, - - - - - 123 

Forty-two Miles Per Hour, ^ - - - - - 131 

Used up at Last, ------- 139 

A Victim of Low Wages, - - - - - - 145 

Coroners' Juries v. Railroad Men, - - - - - 153 

Adventures of an Irish Railroad Man, . - - - leii 

A Bad Bridge, - - - - - - - 169 

A Warning, - - - - - - - 177 

Singular Accidents, - - - - - - -185 

Ludicrous Incidents, - - - - - -191 

Explosions, - - - - - - - 197 

How a Friend was Killed, ------ 203 

An Unromantic Hero, - - - - - -213 

The Duties of an Engineer, . _ _ - . 219 



RUNx^ING IN A FOG 



EUNNING IN A FOG 



In the year 185- I was running an engine on the 
road. My engine was named the Racer, and a 



"racer" she was, too; her driving-wheels were seven 
feet in diameter, and she could turn them about as fast as 
was necessary, I can assure you. My regular train was the 
" Morning Express," leaving the upper terminus of the 
road at half past four, running sixty-nine miles in an hour 
and forty-five minutes, which, as I had to make three 
stops, might with justice be considered pretty fast travel- 
ing. 

I liked this run amazingly — for, mounted on my " iron 
steed," as I sped in the dawn of day along the banks of 
the river which ran beside the road, I saw all nature wake ; 
the sun would begin to deck the eastern clouds with rose- 

(11) 



12 RUNNING IN A FOG. 

ate hues — rising higher, it would tip the mountain-tops 
with its glorj — higher still, it would shed its radiance over 
ever J hill -side and in every valley. It would illumine the 
broad bosom of the river, before flowing so dark and drear, 
now sparkling and glittering with radiant beauty, seeming 
to run rejoicing in its course to the sea. The little vessels 
that had lain at anchor all night, swinging idly with the 
tide, would, as day came on, shake out their broad white 
sails, and, gracefully careening to the morning breeze, 
sweep away over the water, looking so ethereal that I no 
longer wondered at the innocent Mexicans supposing the 
ships of Cortez were gigantic birds from the spirit-land. 
Some mornings were not so pleasant, for frequently a 
dense fog would rise and envelop in its damp, unwholesome 
folds the river, the road, and all things near them. This 
was rendered doubly unpleasant from the fact that there 
were on the line numerous drawbridges which were liable 
to be opened at all hours, but more especially about day- 
break. To be sure there were men stationed at every 
bridge, and in fact every half-mile along the road, whose 
special duty it was to warn approaching trains of danger 
from open drawbridges, obstructions on the track, etc., 
but the class of men employed in such duty was not 



RUNNING IN A FOG. 13 

noted for sobriety, and the wages paid were not sufficient 
to secure a peculiarly intelligent or careful class. So the 
confidence I was compelled to place in them was necessa- 
rily burdened with much distrust. 

These m^n were provided • with white and red signal 
lanterns, detonating torpedoes and colored flags, and the 
rules of the road required them to place a torpedo on the 
rail and show a red signal both on the bridge and at a 
" fog station," distant half a mile from the bridge, before 
they opened the draw. At all times when the draw was 
closed they were to show a white light or flag at this " fog 
station." This explanation will, I trust, be sufficient to 
enable every reader to understand the position in which I 
found myself in the " gray " of one September morning. 
. I left the starting-point of my route that morning ten 
minutes behind time. The fog was more dense than I 
ever remembered having seen it. It enveloped every 
thing. I could not see the end of my train, which con- 
sisted of five cars filled with passengers. The " head- 
light " which I carried on my engine illumined the fleecy 
cloud only a few feet, so that I was running into the most 
utter darkness. I did not like the look of things at all, 
but my " orders " were positive to use all due exertions to 



14 RUNNING IN A FOG. 

make time. So, blindly putting my trust in Providence 
and the miserable twentj-dollars-a-month-men who were 
its agents along the road, I darted headlong into and 
through the thick and, to all mortal vision, impenetrable 
fog. The Racer behaved noblj that morning ; she 
seemed gifted with the " wings of the wind," and 
rushed thunderinglj on, making such *' time " as aston- 
ished even me, almost " native and to the manor born." 
Everything passed off right. I had " made up" seven 
minutes of mj time, and was within ten miles of my jour- 
ney's end. The tremendous speed at which I had been 
running had exhilarated and excited me. That pitching 
into darkness, bhndly trusting to men that I had at best 
but weak faith in, had given my nerves an unnatural ten- 
sion, so I resolved to run the remaining ten miles at what- 
ever rate of speed the Racer was capable of making. 
I gave her steam, and away we flew. The fog was so 
thick that I could not tell by passing objects how fast we 
ran, but the dull, heavy and oppressive roar, as we shot 
through rock cuttings and tunnels, the rocking and strain- 
ing of my engine, and the almost inconceivable velocity at 
which the driving-wheels revolved, told me that my speed 
was something absolutely awful. I did not care, though. 



^RUNNING IN A FOG. 15 

I was used to that, and the rules bore me out ; besides, I 
wanted to win for my engine the title of the fastest engine 
on the road, which I knew she deserved. So I cried, 
"On! on!!'' 

I had to cross one drawbridge which, owing to the 
intervention of a high hill, could not be seen from the 
time we passed the " fog station " until we were within 
three or four rods of it. I watched closely for the " fog 
station " signal. It was white. " All right ! go ahead my 
beauty ! " shouted I, giving at the same time another jerk 
at the " throttle," and we shot into the " cut." In less 
time than it takes me to write it, we were through, and 
there on the top of the " draw," dimly seen through a rift in 
the fog, glimmered with to me actual ghastliness the danger 
signal — a red light. It seemed to glare at me with almost 
fiendish malignancy. Stopping was out of the question, 
even had I been running at a quarter of my actual speed. 
As I was running, I had not even time to grasp the whis- 
tle-cord before we would be in. So giving one longing, 
lingering thought to the bright world, whose duration to 
me could not be reckoned in seconds even, I shut my 
eyes and waited my death, which seemed as absolute and 
inevitable as inglorious. It was but an instant of time, 



16 RUNNING IN A FOG. 

but an age of thought and dread — and then — I was over 
the bridge. A drunken bridge-tender had, with accursed 
stupidity, hoisted the wrong light, and my adventure was 
but a "scare," — but half a dozen such were as bad as 
death. 

It was three weeks before I ran again, and I never 
after " made up time " in a fog. 



A CLOSE SHAYE 



A CLOSE SHAVE 



Several times during my life I have felt the emotions 
so often told of, so seldom felt by any man, when, with 
death apparently absolute and inevitable, immediate and 
inglorious, staring me full in the face, I forgot all fears 
for myself— dreamed not of shuddering at the thought 
that I soon must die — that the gates of death were swung 
wide open before me, and that, with a speed and force 
against which all human resistance was useless, I was 
rushing into them. I knew that I was fated with the 
rest ; but I thought only of those behind me in my 
charge, under my supervision, then chatting gaily, watch- 
ing the swift-receding scenery, thinking perhaps how 
quickly they would be at home with their dear ones, and 
not dreaming of the hideous panorama of death so soon 

(]9) 



20 A CLOSE SHAVE. 

to unroll, the tinkle of the bell for the starting of which 
I seemed to hear ; the first sad scene, the opening 
crash of which was sickening my soul with terror and blind- 
ing me with despair. For I knew that those voices, now 
so gay, now so happy, would soon be shrieking in agony, 
or muttering the dying groan. I knew that those faces, 
now so smiling, would soon be distorted with pain, or 
crushed out of all semblance to humanity; and I was 
powerless to avert the catastrophe. All human force 
was powerless. Nothing but the hand of God, stretched 
forth in its Omnipotence, could avert it ; and there was 
scarce time for a prayer for that ; for such scenes last 
but a moment, though their memory endures for all time. 
I remember well one instance of this kind. I was 
running on the R. & W. road, in the East. A great 
Sabbath-school excursion and picnic was gotten up, and 
I was detailed to run the train. The children of all the 
towns on the road were assembled ; and, when we got 
to the grove in which the picnic was to be held, we had 
eighteen cars full as they could hold of the little ones, 
all dressed in their holiday attire, and brimful of mirth 
and gayety. I drew the train in upon the switch, out of 
the way of passing trains, let the engine cool down, and 



A CLOSE SHAVE. 21 

then went into the woods to participate In the innocent 
pleasures of the day. The children very soon found out 
that I was the engineer ; and, as I liked children, and 
tried to amuse them, it was not long before I had a 
perfect troop at my heels, all laughing and chatting 
gaily to '' Mr. Engineer," as they called me. They 
asked me a thousand questions about the engine; and 
one and all tried to extort a promise from me to let 
them ride with me, several declaring to me in the 
strictest confidence, their intention of becoming engi- 
neers, and their desire, above all things, that I should 
teach them how. 

So the day passed most happily. The children swung 
in the swings, romped on the grass, picked the flowers, 
and wandered at their own sweet will all over the 
woods. A splendid collation was prepared for them, at 
which I, too, sat down, and liked to have made my- 
self sick eating philopenas with the Billys, Freddys, 
Mollies, and Matties, whose acquaintance I had made 
that day, and whose pretty faces and sweet voices 
would urge me, in a style that I could not find heart 
to resist, to eat a philopena with them, or ''just to 



22 A CLOSE SHAVE. 

taste their cake and see if it wasn't the goodest I ever 
saw." 

But the day passed, as happy or unhappy days will, 
and time to start came round. We had some trouble 
getting so many little folks together, and it was only 
by dint of a great deal of whistling that all my load 
was collected. I was much amused to see some of 
the little fellows' contempt at others more timid than 
they, who shut their ears to the sound of the whistle, 
and ran to hide in the cars. Innumerable were the 
entreaties that I had from some of them, to let them 
ride on the engine, " only this once ; " but I was inex- 
orable. The superintendent of the road, who conducted 
the train, came to me as I was about ready to start, 
and told me that, as we had lost so much time collecting 
our load, I had better not stop at the first station, from 
whence we had taken but a few children, but push on to 
the next, where we would meet the down train, and send 
them back from there. Another reason for this was, that 
I had a heavy train, and it was a very bad stop to make, 
lying right in a valley, at the foot of two very heavy 
grades. So, off I started, the children in the cars 



A CLOSE SHAVE. 23 

swinging a dozen handkerchiefs from every window, all 
happy. 

As I had good running-ground, and unless I hurried, 
was going to be quite late in reaching my journey's 
end, I pulled out, and let the engine do her best. So 
we were running very fast — about forty-eight miles an 
hour. Before arriving at the station at which I was not 
to stop, I passed through a piece of heavy wood, in the 
midst of which was a long curve. On emerging from 
the woods, we left the curve, and struck a straight 
track, which extended toward the station some forty 
rods from the woods. I sounded my whistle a half 
mile from the station, giving a long blow to signify my 
intention of passing without a stop, and never shut off; 
for I had a grade of fifty feet to the mile to surmount 
just as I passed the station, and I wanted pretty good 
headway to do it with eighteen cars. I turned the 
curve, shot out into sight of the station, and there 
saw what almost curdled the blood in my veins, and 
made me tremble with terror : a dozen cars, heavily 
laden with stone, stood on the side track, and the 
switch at this end was wide open ! I knew it was 
useless, but I whistled for brakes, and reversed my 



24 A CLOSE SHAVE. 

engine. I might as well have thrown out a fish-hook 
and line, and tried to stop by catching the hook in a 
tree ; for, running as I was, and so near the switch, a 
feather laid on the wheels would have stopped us just 
as soon as the brakes. I gave up all. I did not think 
for a moment of the painful death so close to me ; I 
thought only of the load behind me. I thought of their 
sweet faces, which had so lately smiled on me, now to 
be distorted with agony, or pale in death. I thought 
of their lithe limbs, so full of animation, now to be 
crushed, and mangled, and dabbled in gore. I thought 
of the anxious parents watching to welcome their smil- 
ing, romping darlings home again ; doomed, though, to 
caress only a mangled, crushed, and stiffened corpse, 
or else to see the fair promises of their young lives 
blasted forever, and to watch their darlings through a 
crippled life. 'Twas too horrible. I stood with stiffened 
limbs and eyeballs almost bursting from their sockets, 
frozen with terror, and stared stonily and fixedly, as we 
rushed on — when a man, gifted, it seemed, with super- 
human strength and activity, darted across the track 
right in front of the train, turned the switch, and we 
were saved. I could take those little ones home in 



A CLOSE SHAVE. 25 

safety . I never run an engine over that road after- 
wards. The whole thing transpired in a moment; but 
a dozen such moments were worse than death, and 
would furnish terror and agony enough for a lifetime. 



A COLLISION 



A (JU LLISION. 



Of the various kinds of accidents that may befall a 
railroad -man, a collision is the most dreaded, because, 
generally, the most fatal. The man who is in the wreck 
of matter that follows the terrible shock of two trains 
colliding, stands indeed but a poor chance to escape with 
either life or limb. No combination of metal or wood 
can be formed strong enough to resist the tremendous 
momentum of a locomotive at full or even half speed, 
suddenly brought to a stand -still ; and when two trains 
meet the result is even more frightful, for the momentum 
is not only doubled, but the scene of the wreck is length- 
ened, and the amount of matter is twice as great. The 
two locomotives are jammed and twisted together, and the 
wrecked cars stretch behind, bringing up the rear of the 

(29) 



30 A COLLISION. 

procession of destruction. I, myself, never had a coUipion 
with another engine, but I did collide with the hind end of 
another train of fortj cars, which was standing still, at the 
foot of a heavy grade, and into which I ran at about thir- 
ty-five miles an hour, and from the ninth car of which I 
made my way, for the engine had run right into it. The 
roof of the car was extended over the engine, and the 
sides had bulged out, and were on either side of me. The 
cars were all loaded with, flour. The shock of the colli- 
sion broke the barrels open and diffused the " Double 
Extra Genesee " all over ; it mingled with the smoke and 
steam and floated all round, so that when, during the sev- 
eral minutes I was confined there, I essayed to breathe, I 
inhaled a compound of flour, dust, hot steam and chok- 
ing smoke. Take it altogether, that car from which, as 
soon as I could, I crawled, was a httle the hottest, 
most dusty, and cramped position into which I was ever 
thrown. To -add to the terror-producing elements of the 
scene, my fireman lay at my feet, caught between the ten- 
der and the head of the boiler, and so crushed that he 
never breathed from the instant he was caught. He was 
crushed the whole length of his body, from the left hip to 
the right shoulder, and compressed to the thinness of 



A COLLISION. 31 

my hand. In fact, an indentation was made in the boiler 
where the tender struck it, and his body was between 
boiler and tender ! The way this accident happened was 
simple, and easily explained. The freight train which I 
was to pass with the express at the next station, broke 
down while on this grade. The breakage was trifling and 
could easily be repaired, so the conductor dispatched a 
man (a green hand, that they paid twenty-two dollars a 
month) to the rear with orders, as the night was very 
dark and rainy, to go clear to the top of the grade, a full 
mile off, and swing his red light from the time he saw 
my head light, which he could see for a mile, as the track 
was straight, until I saw it and stopped, and then he was 
to tell me what was the matter, and I, of course, would 
proceed with caution until I passed the train. The con- 
ductor was thus particular, for he knew he was a green 
hand, and sent him back only because he could be 
spared, in case the train proceeded, better than the other 
man ; and he was allowed only two brakemen. Well, with 
these apparently clear instructions, the brakfeman went 
back to the top of the grade. I was then in sight ; he gave, 
according to his own statement, one swing of the lamp, 
and it went out. He had no matches, and what to do he 



82 A COLLISION. 

didn't know. He had in his pocket, to be sure, a half a 
dozen torpedoes, given to him expressly for such emergen- 
cies, but if he ever knew their use, he was too big a fool 
to use the knowledge when it was needed. He might, to 
be sure, have stood right in the track, and, by swinging his 
arms, have attracted my attention, for on dark nights and 
on roads where they hire cheap men, I generally kept a 
close lookout ; and if I saw a man swinging his arms, and, 
apparently trying to see how like a madman he could act, 
I stopped quick, for there was no telling what was the mat- 
ter. But this fellow was too big a fool for that even. He 
turned from me and made towards his own train, bellow- 
ing lustily, no doubt, for them to go ahead, but they were 
at the engine, and its hissing steam made too much noise 
for them to hear, even had he been within ten rods of them. 
But a mile away, that chance was pretty slim, and yet 
on it hung a good many lives. I came on, running about 
forty-five miles an hour, for the next station was a wood 
and water station, and I wanted time there. 

I discovered the red light, held at the rear of the train, 
when within about fifteen rods of it. I had barely time 
to shut off, and was in the very act of reversing when the 
collision took place. The tender jumped up on the foot- 



A COLLISION. 83 

board, somehow I was raised at the same tune, so that it 
did not catch my feet, but the end of the tank caught my 
hand on the " reverse lever," which I had not time to let 
go, and there I was fast. The first five cars were thrown 
clear to one side of the track, by the impetus of my train ; 
the other four were crushed like egg-shells, and in the 
ninth, the engine brought up. I was fast ; it all occurred 
in a second, and the scene was so confusing and rapid that 
I hardly knew when my hand was caught; I certainly 
should not have known where but for the locality of the 
piece of it afterwards found. My pain was awful, for not 
only was my hand caught, but the wood from the tender, 
as I crouched behind the dome, gave my body a most hor- 
rible pummeling, and the blinding smoke and scalding 
steam added to the misery of my position. I really be- 
gan to fear that I should have to stay there and undergo the 
slow, protracted torture of being scalded to death ; but with 
a final efibrt I jerked my hand loose, and groped my way 
out. My clothes were saturated with moisture. The 
place had been so hot that my hands peeled, and my face 
was blistered. I did not fully recover for months. But 
at last I did and went at it again, to run into the doors 

of death, which are wide open all along every mile of a 
3 



34 A COLLISION. 

railroad, and into which, even if nature does not let you 
go, some fool of a man, who is willing to risk his own 
worthless neck in such scenes for twenty-five dollars a 
month, will contrive, ten chances against one, by his stupid 
blundering to push you. 



COLLISION EXTRAORDINARY. 



COLLISION EXTRAORDINARY. 



One morning, in the year 185-, I was running the 
Morning Express, or the Shanghse run, as it was called, on 
the H. road in New York state. The morning was foggy, 
damp and uncomfortable, and by its influence I was de- 
pressed so that I had the " blues" very badly ; I felt weary 
and tired of the life I was leading, dull and monotonous 
always, save when varied by horror. I got to thinking of 
the poor estimate in which the class to which I belonged 
was held by the people generally, who, seated in the easy- 
cushioned seats of the train, read of battles far away — of 
deeds of heroism, performed amid the smoke and din of 
bloody wars, — and their hearts swell with pride, — they 
glow with gladness to think that their own species are ca- 
le of such daring acts, and all the while these very 

(37) 



38 COLLISION EXTRAORDINARY. 

readers are skirting the edges of precipices, to look down 
which would appall the stoutest heart and make the strong- 
est nerved man thrill with terror; — they are crossing 
deep, narrow gorges on gossamer-like bridges ; — they are 
passing switches at terrific speed, where there is but an 
inch of space between smooth-rolling prosperity and quick 
destruction ; — they are darting through dark, gloomy tun- 
nels, which would be turned into graves for them, were a 
single stone to be detached from the roof in front of the 
thundering train ; — they are dragged by a fiery-lunged, 
smoke -belching monster, in whose form are imprisoned 
death-dealing forces the most terrific. And mounted upon 
this fire-fiend sits the engineer, controlling its every mo- 
tion, holding in his hand the thread of every life on the 
train, which a single act — a false move — a deceived eye, 
an instant's relaxation of thought or care on his part, 
would cut, to be united nevermore ,- and the train thunders 
on, crossing bridges, guUies and roads, passing through 
tunnels and cuts, and over embankments. The engineer, 
firm to his post, still regulates the breath of his steam-de- 
mon and keeps his eye upon the track ahead, with a thou- 
sand things upon his mind, the neglect or a wrong thought 
of either of which would run the risk of a thousand lives ; 



COLLISION EXTRAORDINARY. 39 

' — and these readers in the cars are still absorbed with the 
daring deeds of the Zouaves under the warm sun of Italy, 
but pay not a thought to the Zouave upon the engine, 
who every day rides down into the '' valley of death' ^ and 
charges a bridge of Magenta. 

But to return to this dismal, foggy morning that I be- 
gan to tell you of. It was with some such thoughts as 
these that I sat that morning upon my engine, and plunged 
into the fog-banks that hung over the river and the river- 
side. I sat so 

'• Absorbed in guessing, but no syllable expressing -' 

of whether it must always be so with me ; whether I 
should always be chilled with this indifference and want 
of appreciation in my waking hours, and- in my sleep have 
this horrible responsibility and care to sit, ghoul-like, upon 
my breast and almost stifle the beating of my heart ; — 
when with a crash and slam my meditations were interrupt- 
ed, and the whole side of the " cab," with the " smoke- 
stack," "whistle-stand" and "sand-box" were stripped 
from the engine. The splinters flew around my head, the 
escaping steam made most an infernal din, and the " fire- 
box" emitted most as infernal a smoke, and I was ea* 



40 COLLISION EXTRAORDINARY. 

tirely ignorant of what was up or the extent of the dam- 
age done. As soon as I could stop, I of course, after see- 
ing that every thing was right with the engine, went 
back to see what was the cause of this sudden invasion 
upon the dreary harmony of my thoughts, and the com- 
pleteness of my running arrangements, when lo ! and be- 
hold it was a North River schooner with which I had 
collided. It had, during the fog, been blown upon the 
shore, and into its " bowsprit," which projected over the 
track, I had run full tilt. 

I think that I am justified in calling a collision between 
a schooner on the river and a locomotive on the rail, a 
collision extraordinary. Readers, do not you ? 



BURNING OF THE HENRY CLAY. 



BURNING OF THE HENRY CLAY. 



There is one reminiscence of my life as a " railroad 
man" that dwells in mj memory with most terrible vivid- 
ness, one that I often think of in daytime with shuddering 
horror ; and in the night, in dreams of appalling terror, 
each scene is renewed in all the ghastliness of the reality, 
so that the nights when I dream of it become epochs of 
miserable, terrible helplessness. 

It was on a clear, bright day in August. The fields 
were covered with the maturity of verdure, the trees wore 
their coronal of leaves perfected, the birds sang gaily, 
and the river sparkled in the sun ; and I sat upon my en- 
gine, looking ahead mostly, but occasionally casting my 
eyes at the vessels on the river, that spread their white 
sails to the breeze and danced over the rippling waters, 

(43) 



44 BURNING OF THE HENRY CLAY. 

looking too graceful to be of earth. Among the craft 
upon the river I noticed the steamboat " Henry Claj ;" 
another and a rival boat was some distance from it, and 
from the appearance of things I inferred that they were 
racing. I watched the two as closely as I could for some- 
time, and while looking intently at the " Clay," I saw a 
dark column of thick black smoke ascending from her, 
" amidships," just back of the smoke-pipe. At first I 
paid little heed to it, but soon it turned to fire, and the 
leaping flames, like serpents, entwined the whole of the 
middle portion of the boat in their terrible embrace. 
She was at once headed for the shore, and came rushing 
on, trailing the thick cloud of flame and smoke. She 
struck the shore near where I had stopped my train, for, 
of course, seeing such a thing about to happen, I stopped 
to enable the hands and passengers to render what assist- 
ance they could. The burning boat struck the shore by 
the side of a little wharf, right where the station of " Riv- 
erdale" now stands, and those who were upon the forward 
part of her decks escaped at once by leaping to the shore ; 
but the majority of the passengers, including all of the 
women and children, were on the after- part of the boat, 
and owing to the centre of the boat being entirely en- 



BURNING OF THE HENRY CLAY. 45 

wrapped by the hissing flames, they were utterly unable 
to get to the shore. So they were cooped up on the ex 
treme after-end of the boat, with the roaring fire forming 
an impassable barrier to prevent their reaching the land, 
and the swift-flowing river at their feet, surging and bub- 
bhng past, dark, deep, and to most of them as certain 
death as the flames in front. The fire crept on. It drove 
them inch by inch to the water. The strong swimmers, 
crazed by the heat, wrapped their stalwart arms about 
their dear ones, and leaped into the water. Their mutual 
struggles impeded each other ; they sank with words of 
love and farewell bubbling from their lips, unheard amidst 
the roar of the flames and hiss of the water, as the burn- 
ing timbers fell in and were extinguished. Women raised 
their hands to Heaven, uttered one piercing, despairing 
scream, and with the flames enwrapping their clothing, 
leaped into the stream, which sullenly closed over them. 
Some craAvled over the guards and hung suspended until 
the fierce heat compelled them to loose their hold and drop 
into the waves below. Mothers, clasping their children to 
their bosoms, knelt and prayed God to let this cup pass 
from them. Many, leaping into the water, almost gained 
the shore, but some piece of the burning wreck would fall 



46 BURNING OF THE HENRY CLAY. 

upon them and crush them down. Some we could see 
kneeling on the deck until the surging flames and blind- 
ing smoke shrouded them and hid them from our sight. 
One little boy was seen upon the hurricane roof, just as it 
fell. Entwined in each other's embrace, two girls were 
seen to rush right into the raging fire, either deUrious with 
the heat or desirous of quickly ending their dreadful suffer- 
ings, which they thought must end in death. And we 
upon the shore stood almost entirely powerless to aid. 
Death-shrieks and despairing cries for help, prayer and 
blasphemy, all mingled, came to our ear above the roaring 
and crackling of the flames, and in agony and the terror 
of helplessness we closed our ears to shut out the horrid 
sounds. The intense heat of the fire rendered it impossible 
for us to approach near the boat. The many despairing 
creatures struggling in the water made it almost certaic 
death for any to swim out to help. No boats were near, 
except the boats of a sloop which came along just as the 
fire was at its highest and were unable to get near the 
wreck, because of the heat. The scene among the sur- 
vivors was most terrible. One little boy of about seven, 
was running around seeking his parents and sisters. Poor 
fellow ! his search was vain, for the scorching flames had 



BURNING OF THE HENRY CLAY. 47 

killed them, and the rapid river had buried them. A 
mother was there, nursing a dead babe, which drowned in 
her arms, as, with almost superhuman exertions, she strug- 
gled to the shore. A young lady sat by the side of her 
father, lying stark and stiff, killed by a falling beam, within 
twenty feet of the shore. A noble Newfoundland dog 
stood, sole guardian of a little child of three or four, that 
he had brought ashore himself, and to whom we could find 
neither kith nor kin among the crowd. His dog, play- 
mate of an hour before, was now the saviour of his life 
and his only friend. I left the scene with my train when 
convinced that a longer stay was useless, as far as saving 
life went. 

I returned that afternoon, and the water had given up 
many of its dead. Twenty-two bodies lay stretched upon 
the shore — but one in a coffin, and she a bride of that 
morning, with the wedding-dress scorched and blackened, 
and clinging with wet, clammy folds to her stiff and rigid 
form. Her husband bent in still despair over her. A 
little child lay there, unclaimed. His curly, flaxen hair 
that, two hours before, father and sisters stroked so fondly, 
was matted around his forehead, and begrimed with the 
sand, over which his little body had been washed to the 



48 BURNING OF THE HENRY CLAY. 

river-bank. His little lips, that a mother pressed so lately, 
now were black with the slime of the river-bed in which 
he went to sleep. An old man of seventy was there, 
sleeping calmly after the battle of life, which for him cul- 
minated with horror at its close. In short, of all ages 
they were there, lying on the sand, and the scene I shall 
never forget. Each incident, from the first flashing out 
of the flame to the moment when I, with reverent hands, 
helped lay them in their coj95ns and the tragedy closed, 
is photographed forever upon my mind. 



THE CONDUCTOR 



THE CONDUCTOR 



A EECENT case in the courts of this county, has set me 
to thinking of some of the wrongs heaped upon railroad 
men so much, that I shall devote this article exclusively 
to a review of the opprobrium bestowed upon all men con- 
nected with railroads, by the people who every day travel 
under their control, with their lives subject to the care 
and watchfulness of these men, for whose abuse they 
leave no opportunity to escape. Docs a train run off the 
track, and thereby mischief be worked, every possible 
circumstance that can be twisted and distorted into a 
shape such as to throw the blame upon the men connected 
with the road, is so twisted and distorted. The probabil- 
ity of any accident happening without its being directly 

caused by the scarcely less than criminal negligence of 

(51) 



52 " THE CONDUCTOR. 

some of tlie railroad men, is always scouted by the dis- 
cerning public ; most of whom scarcely know the differ- 
ence between a locomotive and a pumping engine. An 
accident caused by the breaking of a portion of the ma- 
chinery of a locomotive engine on the Hudson River Rail- 
road, which did no damage except to cause a three hours' 
detention, was by some enterprising and intelligent (?) 
penny-a-liner dignified into a proof of the general incom- 
petency of railroad men, in one of our prominent literary 
periodicals, and the question was very sagely asked why 
the railroad company did not have engines that would not 
break down, or engineers that would not allow them so to 
do ? The question might, with equal propriety, be asked, 
why did not nature form trees, the timber of which would 
not rot ? Or, why did not nature make rivers that would 
not overflow ? 

Let two suits be brought in almost any of our courts, 
each with circumstances of the same aggravation, say for 
assault and battery, and let the parties in one be ordinary 
citizens, and in the other, let one party be a railroad man 
and the other a citizen, with whom, for some cause, the 
railroad man has had a difficulty, and you will invariably 



THE CONDUCTOR. 53 

see the railroad man's case decided against him, and in 
the other case the defendant be acquitted, to go scot-free. 
Why is this ? Simply, I think, because every individual 
who has ever suffered from the hands of any railroad em- 
ployee, treasures up that indignity, and lays it to the ac- 
count of every other railroad man he meets, making the 
class suffer in his estimation, because one of them treated 
him in a crusty manner. 

If a man's neighbor or friend offend him, he tries to 
forgive it — earnestly endeavors to find palhating circum- 
stances ; but, in the case of railroad men, all that would 
palliate the offense of rudeness and want of courtesy, 
such as is sometimes shown, is studiously ignored, or, at 
the mildest, forgotten. 

I knew a school teacher once, who said that the most 
barbarous profession in the world was that of teaching, 
because it drove from a man all humanity. He got into 
such a habit of ruling, that it became impossible for him 
to understand how to obey any one himself. 

The same thing might be said of a railroad conductor ; 
for, ever}^ day in his life, he takes the exclusive control 
of a train full of passengers of as different dispositions 
as they are of different countenances. Now, he meets 



54 THE CONDUCTOR. 

with a testy, quarrelsome old fellow, who is given to fault- 
finding, and who blows him up at every meeting. Now, 
with a querulous old maid, who is in continual fear lest 
the train run off the track, the boiler burst, or the con- 
ductor palm off some bad money on her. Now, with a 
gent of an inquisitive turn of mind, who is continually 
asking the distance to the next station, and the time the 
train stops there, or else pulling out an old turnip of a 
watch and comparing his time with the conductor's. Then, 
a stupid, dunderheaded man is before him, who does not 
know where he is going, nor how much money he has got. 
Then, somebody has got carried by, and scolds the con- 
ductor for it, or else angrily insists that the train be im- 
mediately backed up for his especial accommodation. 
The next man, maybe, is an Irishman, made gloriously 
happy and piggishly independent, by the aid of poor 
whiskey, who will pay his fare how he pleases, and when 
he pleases ; who is determined to ride where he wants to, 
and who will at once jump in for a fight, if any of these 
rights of his are invaded ; or, mayhap, he will not pay his 
fare at all, deeming that his presence (scarcely more en- 
durable than a hog's) is sufficient honor to remunerate 
the company for his ride ; or perhaps his " brother Tiddj, 



THE CONDUCTOR. 55 

or Pathrick, or Michael, or Dinnis works upon the thrack," 
and " bedad, he'll jist ride onjway." All these char- 
acters are found in any train, and with them the conduc- 
tor has to deal every day. How do you know, when he 
speaks harshly to you, but that he has just had a confab 
with one of these gentry, who has sorely tried his pa- 
tience, and riled his temper? How do you think you 
would fill his place, were you subjected to such annoy- 
ances all the time ? Would you be able at all times to 
maintain a perfectly correct and polite exterior — a Chris- 
tian gravity of demeanor — and never for an instant for- 
get yourself, or lose your temper, or allow your manner 
to show to any one the slightest acerbity? You know 
you could not ; and yet, for being only thus human, you 
are loud in your denunciation of conductors and all rail- 
road men, and, perhaps honestly, but certainly with great 
injustice, believe them to have no care for your wants, no 
interest in your comfort. Treat railroad men with the 
same consideration that you evince towards other business 
companions. Consider always that they are only human 
— have not saintly nor angelic tempers, any of them, and 
that every day's experience is one of trial and provoca- 



56 THE CONDUCTOR. 

tion. By so doing, you will be only rendering them sim- 
ple justice, and you will yourself receive better treatment 
than if you attempt to make the railroad man your meni- 
al, or the pack-horse for all your ill-feeling. 



BRAVERY OF AN ENGINEER. 



BRAVERY OF AN ENGINEER. 



The presence of mind shown bj railroad men is a 
great deal talked about ; but few, I think,, know the trying 
circumstances under which it must be exercised, because 
they have never thought of, and are not familiar enough 
with the details of the business, and the common, every- 
day incidents of the lives of railroad men. If any thing 
does happen to a train of cars, or an engine, it comes so 
suddenly, and is all over so quickly, that the impulse, 
and effort, to do something- to prevent it, must be instan- 
taneous, or they are of no avail. The mind must devise, 
and the hands spring to execute at once, for the man is 
on a machine that moves like the wind-blast, and will 
snap bands and braces of iron or steel as easily as the 
wild horse would break a halter of thread. 

(59) 



60 BRAVERY OF AN ENGINEER. 

The engine, while under the control of its master, moves 
along regularly and with the beauty of a dream ; its wheels 
revolve, glancing in the sun ; its exhausted steam coughs 
as regularly as the strong man's heart beats, and trails 
back over the train, wreathing itself into the most fantas- 
tic convolutions ; now sweeping away towards the sky in a 
grand, white pillar, anon twining and twisting among the 
gnarled limbs of the trees beside the track, and the train 
moves on so fast that the scared bird in vain tries to get 
out of its way by flying ahead of it. Still the engineer 
sits there cool and calm ; but let him have a care, — let 
not the exhilaration of his wild ride overcome his pru- 
dence, for the elements he controls are, while under his 
rule, useful and easily managed, but broken loose, they 
have the power of a thousand giants, and do the work 
of a legion of devils in almost a single beat of the pulse. , 

A man can easily retain his presence of mind where 
the danger depends entirely upon him; that is, where his 
maintaining one position, or doing one thing resolutely, 
will avert the catastrophe ; but under circumstances such 
as frequently beset an engineer, where, to do his utmost, 
he can only partially avert the calamity, then it is that 
the natural bravery and acquired courage of a man is 



BRAVERY OF AN ENGINEER. 61 

tried to the utmost extent. I remember several instances 
of this kind, where engineers, in full view of the awful 
danger which threatened them, knowing too well the ter- 
rible chances of death that Avere against them and the 
passengers under their charge, even if they did main- 
tain their positions, and, by using all their exertions, suc- 
ceeded in slightly reducing the shock of the collision, which 
could only be modified — not averted — still stuck to their 
posts, did their utmost, and rode into the other train and 
met their death, amid the appalling scenes of the chaotic 
ruin which followed. 

George D was running the Night Express on the 

road. I was then running the freight train, v/hich laid 
over at a station for George to pass. One night — ii 
was dark and dismal — the rain had been pouring down in 
torrents all night long; I arrived with my train, went 
in upon the switch and waited for George, who passed 
on the main track without stopping. Owing to the storm 
and the failure of western connections, George was some 
thirty minutes behind, and of course came on, intending 
to run though the station pretty fast — a perfectly safe 
proceeding, apparently, for the switches could not be 
turned wrong without changing the lights, and these be- 



62 BRAVERY OF AN ENGINEER. 

ing '• bull's-eye" lanterns elevated so that they could be 
seen a great distance on the straight track which was 
there, no change could be made without the watchful eye 
of the engineer seeing it at once. So George came on, at 
about thirty-five miles an hour, as near as I could judge, 
and I was watching him all the time. He was within 
about three times the length of his train of the switch — 
was blowing his whistle — when I saw, and he saw the 
switchman run madly out of his " shanty,'' grab the switch 
and turn it so that it would lead him directly into the hind 
end of my train. I jumped, instinctively, to start my en- 
gine — I heard him whistle for brakes, and those that stood 
near said that he reversed his engine — but my train was too 
heavy for me to move quickly, and he was too near to do 
much good by reversing, so I soon felt a heavy concus- 
sion, and knew that he had struck hard, for, at the other 
end of forty-five cars, it knocked me down, and the jar 
broke my engine loose from the train. He might have 
jumped from his engine with comparative safety, after he 
saw the switch changed, for the ground was sandy there 
and free from obstructions ; and he could easily have 
jumped clear of the track and escaped with slight bruises. 
But no! Behind him, trusting to him, and resting in 



BRAVERY OF AN ENGINEER. 68 

comparative security, were hundreds to whom life was as 
dear as to him ; his post was at the head ; to the great 
law of self-preservation, that most people put first in their 
code of practice, his stern duty required him to forswear 
allegiance, and to act on the principle, " others first, my- 
self afterwards." So, with a bravery of heart such as 
is seldom found in other ranks of men, he stuck to his 
iron steed, transformed then into the white steed of death, 
and spent the last energies of his life, the strength of his 
last pulse, striving to mitigate the suffering which would 
follow the collision. His death was instantaneous ; he 
had no time for regrets at leaving life and the friends he 
loved so dearly. When we found him, one hand grasped 
the throttle, his engine was reversed, and with the other 
hand he still held on to the handle of the sand-box lever. 
The whole middle and lower portion of his body was 
crushed, but his head and arms were untouched, and his 
face still wore a resolute, self-sacrificing expression, such 
as must have lit up the countenance of Arnold Winkle- 
ried, when crying, " Make way for liberty ^^^ he threw him- 
self upon a sheaf of Austrian spears and broke the col- 
umn of his enemies. 

I find in nearly every cemetery that I visit, monuments 



64 BRAVERY OF AN ENGINEER. 

and memorial-stones to some brave man who fell and died 
amid the smoke and flame and hate of a battle-field ; and 
orators and statesmen, ministers and newspapers, exhaust 
the fountains of eloquence to extol the " illustrious dead.'' 

But George D , who spent his life in a constant bat 

tie with the elements, who waged unequal war with time 
and space, who at last chose rather to die himself than 
to bring death or injuries to others, sleeps in the quiet of 
a country church-yard. The waihng wind, sighing through 
the few trees there, sings his only dirge ; a plain stone, 
bought by the hard won money of his companions in life, 
alone marks his resting-place. The stranger, passing by, 
would scarcely notice it ; but who shall dare to tell me that 
there resteth not there a frame, from which a soul has 
flown, as noble as any that sleeps under sculptured urn or 
slab, over which thousands have mused, and which has 
been the text of hundreds of exhortations to patriotism 
and self-forgetfulness ? 



THE FIREMAN 



THE FIREMAN. 



The fireman, the engineer's hft-hsmd man, his trump 
card, without whom it w^ould be difficult for him to get 
over the road, is seen but little, and thought but little of. 
He is usually dirty and greasy, wearing a ragged pair of 
overalls, originally blue, but now embroidered so with oil 
and dust, that they are become a smutty brown. Just 
before the train leaves the station, you will see his face, 
down which streams the perspiration, looking back, watch- 
ing for the signal to start ; for this is one of his many 
duties. His head is usually ornamented (in his opinion) 
with some outlandish cap or hat ; though others regard it 
as a fittingly outrageous cap-sheaf to his general dirty 
and outre appearance. But little cares Mr. Fireman ; he 
runs the fire-box of that " machine." He feels pride in 

the whole engine ; and when he sees any one admiring its 

(67) 



68 THE FIREMAN. 

polished surface, gleaming so brightly in the sun, flashing 
so swiftly by the farm-houses on the road (in each of 
which Mr. Fireman has acquaintance of the opposite sex, 
to whom he must needs swing his handkerchief), he feels 
a glow of honest satisfaction ; and the really splendid 
manner in which his eiforts have caused it to shine — 
which is evidently one great reason for the admiration be- 
stowed upon it — so fills him with seif gratulation that, in his 
great modesty, which he fears will be overcome if he 
stays there much longer watching people as they admire 
his handiwork, and he be led to tell them all about it, how 
he scrubbed and scoured to bring her to that pitch of per- 
fection — he turns away, and begins to pitch the wood 
about in the most reckless manner imaginable ; yet every 
stick goes just where he wants it. 

His aspirations (and he has them, my lily-handed 
friend, as well as you, and perhaps, though not so ele- 
vated, more honorable than yours) are, that he may, by 
attending to his own duties, so attract the attention of 
the ones in authority that he may be placed in positions 
where he can learn the business, and, by and by, himself 
have charge of an engine as its runner. It does not seem 
a very high ambition ; but, to attain it, he undergoes a 



THE FIREMAN. by 

probation seldom of less than three, frequently of seven 
or eight years, at the hardest kind of work, performed, 
too, where dangers are thick around him, and his chances 
to avert them very slim. His duties are manifold and 
various ; but long years of attendance to them makes them 
very monotonous and irksome, and he would soon weary 
of them, did not the hope of one day being himself sole 
master of the " iron horse," actuate him to renewed dili 
gence and continued efforts to excel. He is on duty 
longer than any other man connected with the train. He 
mast be on hand before the engine comes out of the shop, 
to start a fire and see that all is right about the engine. 
Usually he brings it out upon the track ; and then, when 
all is ready, he begins the laborious work of throwing 
vfood ; which amounts to the handling of from four to 
seven cords of wood per diem, while the engine and ten- 
der are pitching and rolHng so that a " green- horn" would 
find it hard work to stand on his feet, let alone having, 
while so standing, to keep that fiery furnace supplied with 
fuel. The worse the day, the more the snow or rain 
blows, the harder his work. His hands become calloused 
Yy^ith the numerous wounds he receives from splinters on 
the wood. He it is who has to go out on the runboard 



70 THE FIREMAN. 

and oil the valves, while the engine is running full speed. 
"No matter how cold the wind may blow, how rain, hail, 
sleet, or snow may beat down upon him, covering every 
thing with ice, nor how dark the night, out there he must 
go and crawl along the slippery side of the engine to do 
his work. At stations he must take water, and when at 
last the train arrives at its destination, and others are 
ready to go home, he must stay. If a little too much 
wood is in the fire-box, he must take it out, and then go to 
work cleaning and scouring the dust and rust from off the 
bright work and from the boiler. Every bit of cleaning 
in the cab and above the runboard, including the cylinders 
and steam-chest, must be done by him ; and any one who 
will look at the fancy-work on some of our modern loco- 
motives, can judge something of what he has to do after 
the day's work on the road is done. Every thing is brass, 
or covered with brass ; and all must be kept polished like 
a mirror, or the fireman is hauled over the coals. 

For performing these manifold duties, he receives the 
magnificent sum of (usually) thirty dollars per month ; 
and he knows no Sundays, no holidays — on long roads, he 
scarcely knows sleep. He has not the responsibility rest- 
ing on him that there is upon the engineer ; but it is re- 



THE FIREMAN. 71 

quired of him, when not otherwise engaged with his duty 
of firing, to assist the engineer in keeping a lookout 
ahead. His position is one of the most dangerous on the 
train, as is proved by the frequent occurrence of accidents, 
where only the fireman is killed ; and his only obituary, 
no matter how earnest he may have been, how faithful in 
the performance of his duties, is an item in the tele- 
graphic reports, that a fireman was hilled in such a rail- 
road smash. He may have been one of nature's noble- 
men. A fond mother and sweet sisters may have been 
dependent on his scanty earnings for their support. No 
matter ; the great surging tide of humanity that daily 
throngs these avenues of travel, has not time to inquire 
after, nor sympathy to waste upon, a greasy wood-passer, 
whom they regard as simply a sort of piece in the ma- 
chinery of the road, not half so essential as a valve or 
bolt, for if he be lost, his place can be at once supplied ; 
but if a bolt or other essential piece of the iron machinery 
give out, it will most likely cause a vexatious delay. 
Once in a while a fireman performs some heroic act that 
brings him into a momentary notoriety, and opens the 
eyes of the few who may be cognizant of the case, to the 
fact that, on a railroad, all men are in danger, and that 



72 THE FIREMAN. 

the most humble of them may perform some self-sacrifi- 
cing deed that will, at the expense of his own, save many 
other lives. 

In a collision that occurred at a station on one of the 
roads in New York state, the engineer, a relative of some 
of the managers of the road, who had fired only half so 
long as the man then firing for him, jumped from the en- 
gine, leaving it to run at full speed into the hind end of a 
train standing on a branch track, of which the switch was 
wrong ; not doing a single thing to avert or mitigate the 
calamity ; fearing only for his own precious neck, which a 
hemp cravat would ornament, to the edification of the 
world. The fireman sprang at once to the post vacated 
bj the engineer, reversed the engine, opened the sand-box 
valve, and rode into the hind end of that train ; losing, 
in so doing, a leg and an arm. He has been most muni- 
ficently rewarded for his heroism, being now employed to 
attend a crossing and hold a flag for passing trains, and 
receiving the princely compensation of twenty-five dollars 
per month ; while the engineer, who deserted his post 
and left all to kind Providence^ is running on the road at 
a salary of seventy-five per month. 



THE BRAKEMAN 



THE BRAKEMAN. 



A VERY humble class of railroad men, a class that gets 
poorer pay in proportion to the work they do and the dan- 
gers they run than any other upon a road, are the brake- 
men. Though perhaps less responsibility rests upon them, 
they are placed in the most dangerous position on the train ; 
they are expected to be at their posts at all times, and to 
flinch from no contingency which may arise. The man- 
agers of a railroad expect and demand the brakemen to 
be as prompt in answering the signals of the engineer as 
the throttle-valve is obedient to his touch. 

Reader, were you ever on a train of cars moving with 

the wings of the wind, skimming over the ground as 

rapidly as a bird flies, darting by tree and house, through 

cuttings and over embankments ? and did you ever feel a 

(75) 



76 THE BRAKEMAN. 

sudden jar that almost jerked you from your seat ? At the 
same time did you hear a sharp, sudden blast of the 
whistle, ringing out as if the hand that pulled it was nerved 
by the presence of danger, braced by a terrible anxiety 
to avoid destruction ? It frightened you, did it not ? 
But did you notice the brakeman then ? He rushed 
madly out of the cars as if he thought the train was go- 
ing to destruction surely, and he wished, before the crash 
came, to be out of it. No, that was not his object. He 
caught hold of the brakes and, with all the force and en- 
ergy he was capable of exerting, applied them to the 
swift-revolving wheels, and when you felt the gradual re- 
duction of the speed under the pressure of the brakes, 
you began to feel easier. But what thought the brake- 
man all the time ? Did he think that, if the danger 
ahead was any one of a thousand which might happen ? 
if another train was coming towards them, and they 
should strike it ? if a disabled engine was on the track, 
and a fool, to whom the task was intrusted, had neglected 
to give your train the signal ? if the driving rain had 
raised some little stream, or a spark of fire had lodged in 
a bridge and the bridge was gone ? if some loosened rock 
had rolled down upon the track ; or if the track had slid ; 



THE BRAKEMAN. 77 

or if some wretch, wearing a human form over a hellish 
soul, had lifted a rail, placed a tie on the track, to hurl en- 
gine and car therefrom ? — if any of these things were 
ahead and the speed of your train be too great to stop, 
and go plunging into it, did he realize that he was the 
first man to be caught ; that those two cars between 
which he stood, straining every nerve to do his share to 
avert the catastrophe, would come together and crush him, 
as he would crush a worm beneath his tread ? If he did, 
he was doing his duty in that dangerous place, risking his 
life at a pretty cheap rate — a dollar a day — wasn't he ? 
And still these men do this every day for the same price 
and at the same risk, while the passengers regard them as 
necessary evils, who will be continually banging the doors. 
So they pass them by, never giving them a kind word, 
scarcely ever thanking them for the many little services 
which they unhesitatingly demand of them, and, if the 
passenger has ridden long, and the jolting and jarring, 
the want of rest, or wearisome monotony of the Ions; ride 
has made him peevish, how sure he is to vent his spite on 
the brakeman, because he thinks him the most humble, 
and therefore the most unprotected man on the train. 
And the brakeman endures it all ; for if he answers back 



78 THE BRAKEMAN. 

a word, if he asserts his manhood — which many seem to 
think he has sold for his paltry thirty dollars a month — 
why, he is reported at the office, a garbled version of the 
affair is given, and the brakeman is discharged. 

But have a care, ! most chivalrous passenger, you 
who fly into such a passion if your dignity is offended by 
a short answer. You may quarrel with a man having a 
soul in him beside which yours would look most pitifully 
insignificant ; one who, were the dread signal to sound, 
would rush out into the danger, and, throwing himself into 
the chasm, die for you, amid all the appalling scenes of 
the chaotic wreck of that train of cars, as coolly, as de- 
terminately, as unselfishly as the Stuart queen barred 
the door with her own fair arm, that her liege lord might 
escape. And then, methinks, you would feel sad when you 
saw his form stretched there dead, all life crushed out 
of it — once so comely, now so mangled and unsightly — 
and thought that, with that poor handful of dust from 
which the soul took flight so nobly, you had just been 
picking a petty quarrel. 

If you have read the accounts of railroad accidents 
as carefully and with such thrilling interest as I have, 
you will remember many incidents where brakemen were 



THE BRAKEMAN. 79 

killed while at their post, discharging their duty. Sev- 
eral have come under my immediate observation. On the 
H. R. R. one night I was going over the road, " extra," 
that is, I was not running the engine, but riding in the car. 
I heard a sharp whistle, but thought it was not of much 
consequence, for I knew the engineer's long avowed in- 
tention, to never ball the brakemen to their posts when 
the danger could be avoided ; he said he w^ould give 
them a little chance, not call them where they had none. 
The brakemen all sprang to their posts ; the one in the car 
where I was I saw putting on his brake ; the next instant, 
with a shock that shook every thing loose and piled the 
seats, passengers, stove, and pieces of the roof all into 
a mass in the forward end of the car, the engine struck 
a rock, the cars were all piled together, and I was pitch- 
ed mto the alley up close to the end which was all stove 
in. I felt blood trickling on my hands, but thought it 
was from a wound I had received on my head. I soon 
found that it was from Charley McLoughlin, the brake- 
man with whom I had just been talking, and whom I 
saw go to his post at the first signal of danger. The 
whole lower part of his body was crushed, but he yet 
lived. We got him out as soon as possible and laid him be- 



80 THE BRAKEMAN. 

side the track on a door, then went to get the rest of the 
dead and wounded. We found one of the brakemen 
dead, his head mashed flat ; the other one, Joe Barnard, 
was hurt just as Charley was, and as they were insepa- 
rable companions, we laid them together. I took their 
heads in my lap — we did not try to move them, as the 
physicians said they could not live — and there for four 
long hours I sat and talked with those men whose lives 
were surely, but slowly ebbing away. In life they were 
as brothers, and death did not separate them, for they de- 
parted within fifteen minutes of each other. But notice 
this fact — the brakeman who was found dead, still held in 
his hand the shattered brake-wheel, and Joe Barnard was 
crushed with both hands still grasping his. Yet these 
men were " only brakemen ! " 



A DREAM m THE " CABOOSE." 



A DREAM IN THE "CABOOSE." 



A FIRST thought of the life of an engineer would be that 
it was a life peculiarly exhilarating ; that in the mind of 
an engineer the rush and flow of strong feeling and emo- 
tion would constantly be felt ; that the everj-day incidents 
of his life would keep his nerves continually on the stretch, 
and that lassitude would never overtake him. But such 
is not the case. I know of no life that a man could live 
which would more certainly produce stagnation than it. 
Every day, in sunshine or storm, cold or heat, light or 
darkness, he goes through the same scenes, bearing the 
same burdens of care and responsibility, facing the same 
dangers, braving grim death ever and all the time until 
he loses fear, and the novelty of the at first exhilarating 
effort to conquer space and distance, and make time of no 
account, wears away, till danger becomes monotonous, and 

(83) 



84 A DREAM m THE " CABOOSE." 

only an occasional scene of horror checkers the unchang- 
ing current of his everj-day Hfe. He knows every tie 
on the road ; he knows that here is a bad curve, there a 
weak bridge, from either of which he may at any time, by 
the most probal^e of possibiHties, be hurled to his death ; 
and still every day he rides his " iron horse," of fiery 
heart and demon pulse, over the weak places and the 
strong, posted at the very front of the procession, which 
any one of a thousand contingencies would make a funeral 
train. He passes the same stations, blows his whistle at 
the same point, "sees the same men at work in the same 
fields, with the same horses that they used last year and 
the year before. Two lines of iron stretch before him, 
to demand and receive his earnest scrutiny every day, 
precisely as they have every day for years. 

He meets the same men on other trains at the same 
places, and bids them " hail " and " good-bye " with the 
same uncertainty of ever seeing them again that he has 
always felt, and which has grown so sadly wearisome. 

He alone knows and appreciates the chances against 
him, but bis daily bread depends upon his running them, 
so with a resolute will that soon gets to be the merest 
trusting to luck, he goes ahead, controlled by the same 



A DREAM m THE " CABOOSE." 85 

rules, which always have the same dreary penalties at- 
tached to them when violated, — a maimed and disfigured 
body for the balance of his days, or a sudden and inglo- 
rious death. 

If one of his intimate companions gets killed, he can 
only bestow a passing thought upon it, for he has not been 
unexpectant of it, and he knows full well that the same 
accident may at the same place make it his turn next, as 
he passes over the same road every day, running the same 
chances, as did his friend just gone. 

I had, while I was on the H road, a particular 

friend, an engineer. We were inseparable, and were 
both of us, alike, given to fits of despondency, at which 
times we would, with choking dread, bid each other fare- 
well, and " hang around" the telegraph office to hear the 
welcome "OK" from the various stations, signifying that 
our trains had passed " on time" and " all right." 

One Saturday night, when my engine was to " ky over" 
for the Sunday at the upper end of the road, I determined 

to go back to N . The only train down that night, 

was the one o'clock " night freight," which Charley, 
my friend, was to tow with the " Cumberland," a heavy, 
clumsy " coal-burner." I went to the engine-house, and 



86 

sat down with Charley, to smoke and talk till his " leav- 
ing time" came. He had the blues that night, and 
after we had talked awhile, I had them too. So we sat 
there slowly pujffing our pipes, recalling gloomy tales of 
our own, and of others' experience; telling of unlucky 
engines (a favorite superstition with many engineers), 
and of unlucky men, and of bad places on the road, weak 
bridges, loose rails, shelving rocks, and bad curves, until 
we had got ourselves into the belief that nothing short of 
a miracle could possibly enable even a hand-car to pass 
over the road in any thing like safety. Had any of the 
passengers who daily passed over the road, in the compar- 
ative safety of its sumptuous coaches, been there and heard 
our description of the road, I guess they would have tak- 
en lodgings at the nearest hotel, sooner than have ridden 
over the road that night, towed by that engine, which 
Charley had more than once characterized as a " death- 
trap" and " man-killer," and proven her right to the 
name by alluding to the four men she had killed. At 
length the hours had dragged themselves along, and the 
" Cumberland" was coupled to the train. As I started 
for the " Caboose," Charley said to me, " The ' Cum- 
berland' always was and always will be an unlucky 



87 

engine, and blamed if I know but she will kill me to- 
night, so let's shake hands, and good-bye.'' We shook 
hands, and I clambered into the " Caboose," having, it must 
be confessed, a sneaking kind of good feeHng to think that 
I was at the rear instead of the front end of those forty 
cars, especially as the engine was one that, despite my 
reason and better judgment, I more than half-believed was 
" cursed" with "ill-luck;" by which I mean, she was pe- 
culiarly liable to fatal accidents. Well, I curled myself 
up on one of the seats and prepared for sleep ; not, 
though, in just the frame of mind I would choose in order 
to secure " pleasant slumbers" and " sweet dreams." 
At first my sleep was fitful ; the opening of the door, as 
the hands frequently went out or came in ; the cessation 
of the jar and rumble when the train stopped ; the chang- 
ing of position as I tossed about in my fitful sleep — these 
all would wake me. At last, however, I dropped to sleep, 
and slept long and soundly. Strange dreams, fraught 
with terror, filled with wild and fantastic objects, danced 
over and controlled my mind. I w^as placed in positions 
of the most awful dread ; I was on engines of inconceiva- 
ble power, powerless to control them, and they ran with 



88 A DEEAM IN THE 

the velocity of light into long trains laden with smiling 
women and romping children, whose shrieks mingled with 
the curses of their husbands and fathers, who said it was 
mj fault, and cursed me to lingering tortures. Then the 
scene would change. I would be on a long straight track, 
mounted on an engine which seemed a devil broken loose, 
and bent on a mission of death which I could not stir to 
stop; while away in the distance was another engine, 
coming towards me, and I felt, by intuition, that it was 
Charley, and then I would see his white and pallid 
face, clammy with the sweat of terror, and his long black 
hair swept back from his forehead, while agony, despair, 
and the miserable, hopeless fear of instant and horrible 
death shone with lurid, fierce, unnatural fire from his 
dark blue eye, and I seemed to know that every one I 
held dear was on his train ; that my sisters were there 
looking out of the window, gaily laughing and watching 
for the next station, where my train was to meet theirs, 
and my mother sat smilingly by, looking on, while other 
friends that I loved were saying kind words of me, who, 
in another instant, would be upon them with a fiendish, 
fiery engine of death. I would shut my eyes, and the 



A DREAM IN THE " CABOOSE." 89 

scene would change again. I would be skirting the edges 
of deep, dark precipices, and while I looked, shuddering, 
down into the dark and sombre depths, my whole train 
ivould go over the bank and down, down — still farther 
down it plunged — till I seemed to have gone far enough 
for the nether depths. A sudden tremendous jar woke 
me, and I sprang to my feet from the floor to which I had 
been hurled, and found myself in utter darkness. For 
an instant I did not know where I was, but I soon re- 
called myself and started out of the " Caboose," fully 
convinced that some awful calamity had happened to the 
train, and bound to know, in the shortest possible time, 
whether Charley or any of the rest of the hands were 
hurt. I soon saw a light, and hallooed to know what was 
the matter. " Nothing," answered Charley's well-known 
voice. " Well," says I, " you make a deuce of a fuss do- 
ing nothing." I told him how I was awakened, and we 
started back to see what was the matter. We found that, 
in throwing the " Caboose" in upon the branch track, he 
had given it too much headway, and there being no brake- 
man on it to check its speed, it had hit the tie laid across 
the rail with sufficient force to throw me from the seat 



90 A DREAM IN THE 

and put out the only lamp in the car. So we went home, 
laughing heartily ; but I never prepared myself for an- 
other midnight ride in the " Caboose" of a freight train 
by telling horrid stories just before I started. 



AN UNMITIGATED VILLAIN. 



KS UNMITIGATED VILLAIN, 



Everybody knows mean men. Everybody knows 
people that they think are capable of any mean act, who 
would, did opportunity present itself, steal, lie, cheat, 
swear falsely, or do any other act which is vicious. But 
do any of my readers think that they know any one who 
would be guilty of deliberately placing an obstruction on a 
railroad track, over which he knew that a train, laden with 
human passengers, must soon pass ? Yet such men are 
plenty. Such acts are frequently done, and often with the 
sole view of stealing from the train during the excitement 
which must necessarily ensue after such an accident. Some- 
times such deeds are done from pure revenge, because the 
man who does it imagines that the railroad company has 
done him some injury, and he thinks that by so doing he will 

(93) 



94 AN UNMITIGATED VILLAIN. 

reap a rich harvest of vengeance. What kind of a soul 
can such a man have ? The man who desires to steal, 
wishes to get a chance to do so when people's minds are 
so occupied with some other idea that their property is 
not thought of. So he goes to the railroad track and lifts 
up a rail, places a tie or a T rail across the track, or does 
something that he thinks will throw the train from the 
track ; and then lies in wait for the accident to happen, 
calmly and with deliberate purpose awaiting the event ; 
expecting, amid the carnage which will probably follow, to 
reap his reward ; calculating, when it comes, to fill his 
pockets with the money thus obtained^, and when it does 
happen, and the heavy train, in which, resting in security, 
are hundreds of passengers, goes off the track, is wrecked, 
and lies there with every car shattered, and out of their 
ruins are creeping the mangled victims, who rend the air 
with their horrid shrieks and moans of agony ; when the 
dead and the mangled are mixed up amidst the appalling 
wreck ; when little children, scarce able to go alone, are 
so torn to pieces that they linger only for a few moments 
on earth ; when famihes, that a few moments before were 
unbroken and happy, are separated forever by the death 
of the father who lies in sight of the remaining ones, a 



AN UNMITIGATED VILLAIN. 95 

crushed and bleeding mass, or by the loss of the mother, 
who, caught by some portion of the wreck, is held, and 
there, in awful agony, slowly frets her life away, right in 
sight of all that are dear to her ; or, maybe, a husband, 
who is hurrying home to his dear one lying at the point 
of death, and anxiously awaiting his coming, that, before 
she dies, she may bid him good-bye, he is caught and 
mangled so that he cannot move farther, and the wife dies 
alone. Maybe a child, long time absent, is hastening home 
to meet the aged mother or father, and bid them good-bye 
ere the long running sands are run out entirely ; but here 
he is caught, and his last breath of life goes out with a 
heart-rending, horrible scream of agony, and only his 
mangled corpse can go home. All ties may be rudely 
sundered. The infant at its mother's breast may be killed, 
and its mother clasp its tiny, bleeding form to her bosom, 
but it shall smile on her nevermore ; its cooing voice shall 
not welcome her care again on earth. The mother too 
may be killed, and the moaning child may sob and sigh 
for the accustomed kiss, but all in vain. The mother, 
mangled and slain, only holds the child in the stiff embrace 
of death. The author of it all — where is he ? he that did 
the deed ? Is he rummaging the baggage or the pockets 



96 AN UNMITIGATED VILLAIN. 

of the dead to find spoil ? If he is, surely every cent he 
gets will blister his fingers through all time and in hell. 
The wail of the dying and the last gasp of the dead will, 
through all time, surely ring in his ears with horrible dis- 
tinctness, and with a sound ominous of eternal torture. 
The horrible sight of the mangled, bleeding bodies, the 
set eyes, and jaws locked from excessive torture, will 
surely fasten on his eye forever, and blister his sight. Hor- 
rid dreams, wherein jibing fiends shall mock at him and the 
wail of the damned ring forever in his ears, shall surely 
visit his pillow and haunt him every night. Each voice 
that he hears amid the carnage shall seem, in after-time, to 
be the voice of an accusing angel telling him of his guilt. 
So we would think, and yet men do it. Some in order 
to have a chance to steal, others as revenge for some petty 
injury ; and they live, and, if detected, are sent for ten 
or twenty years to the penitentiary, as if that were punish- 
ment enough ! It may be that I feel too strongly on the 
subject, but it seems to me that an eternity in hell would 
scarce be more than sufficient punishment for such a dam- 
nable deed. I think I could coolly and without compunction 
tread the drop to launch such a being to eternity; for 
surely no good influence that earth affords would be suf- 



AN UNMITIGATED VILLAIN. 97 

ficient to reclaim such a man from the damnable deprav- 
ity of his nature. Surelj a man capable of such a deed, 
is a born fiend fit only for the abiding place of the accurs- 
ed of God, whose voice should ever be heard howling in 
sleepless, eternal agony in the sulphurous chambers of the 
devil's home. I do feel strongly on this subject, for I have 
stood by and seen many a horrid death of this kind ; I 
have held the hands of dear friends and felt their last con- 
vulsive pressure amid such scenes, whose deaths were 
caused by the diabohcal malignity of some devil, who, for 
the nonce, had assumed human shape, and in revenge for the 
death of a cow, or for the unpaid occupation of land, or 
to get a chance to rob, had placed something on the track 
and thrown the cars therefrom. I have seen things placed 
on the track, rails torn up, and other traps, the ingenuity 
of whose arrangement could only have been begotten by 
the devil ; and I have shut my eyes and thought that I 
had taken my last look at earth and all its glories ; but I 
have escaped. I never caught one of these wretches, 
and I never want to ; for if I should, I am afraid I would 
become an instrument for riddyig the earth of a being 
who had secured good title (and could not lose it) to an 

abode in the nethermost hell. 

7 



A PROPOSED RACE 



STEAM AND LIGHTNING 



A PROPOSED RACE BETWEEN STEAM AND 
LIGHTNING. 



Old Wash. S is known by almost every railroad 

engineer, at least by reputation. A better engineer, one 
who could make better time, draw heavier loads, or keep 
his engine in better repair, I never knew. But Wash. 
had one failing, he would drink ; and if he was particu- 
larly elated with any good fortune, or was expecting to 
make a fast run, he was sure to get full of whiskey ; and 
though in that state never known to transgress the rules 
of the road by running on another train's time, or any 
thing of that sort, still he showed the thing which con- 
trolled him by running at a terrible rate of speed. At 
one time they purchased a couple of engines for the E. 
road, on which Wash, was running. These engines were 
very large, and were intended to be very fast, being put 

(101) 



102 A PROPOSED RACE 

up on seven feet wheels. From the circumstance of 
their being planked between the spokes of their " dri- 
vers," that is, having a piece of plank set in between the 
spokes, the " bojs" used to call them the " plank-roaders." 
They were tried, and though generally considered capa- 
ble of making " fast time" under favorable circumstances, 
they didn't suit that road ; so they were condemned to 
" the gravel-pit," until they could receive an overhauling, 
and be "cut down" a foot or two. Wash, had always 
considered that these engines were much abused, and had 
never received fair treatment ; so he obtained permission 
of the Superintendent to take one of them into the shop 
and repair it. At it he went, giving the engine a thor- 
ough overhauling, fixing her valves for the express pur- 
pose of running fast, and making many alterations in mi- 
nor portions of her machinery. At last he had the job 
completed, and took her out on the road. After running 
one or two trips on freight trains to smooth her brasses, 
and try her working, he was " chalked" for the fastest 
train on the road, the B. Express. All the " boys" on 
the road were anxious for the result, for it was expected 
that " Old Wash." and the " plank-roader" would " as- 



BETWEEN STEAM AND LIGHTNING. 103 

tonish the natives," that trip. Wash, imbibed rather 
freely, and was somewhat under the influence of liquor 
when the leaving time of his train came, though not 
enough to be noticed ; but as minute after minute passed, 
and the train with which it connected did not make its 
appearance, Wash., who kept drinking all the time, grew 
tighter and tighter, till at last, when it did come in, 
an hour and a half " behind time," Wash, was pretty 
comfortably drunk ; so much so that some of the men who 
had to go on the train with him looked rather " skeery," 
for they knew that they might expect to be " towed " as 
fast as the engine could run. How fast that was no one 
knew, but her seven feet wheels promised a near ap- 
proach to flying. 

At last tHey started, and I freely confess that I never 
took as fast a ride in my life. (Wash, had got me to 
fire for him.) Keeping time was out of the question 
as far as I was concerned, for I had my hands full to 
keep the "fire-box" full, and hold my hat on. We had 
not run more than ten miles, before the brakemen, order- 
ed by the conductor, put on the brakes, impeding our 
speed somewhat, but not stopping us, for we were on a 



104 A PROPOSED RACE 

heavy down grade, and Wash, had her " wide open,'* 
and working steam at full stroke. At last the con- 
ductor came over and begged Wash, not to run so fast, 
for the passengers were half scared out of their senses. 
Wash, simplj pointed to the directions to use all " due 
exertion" to make up time, and never shut off a bit. So 
on we flew to B., forty miles from where we started, and 
the first stopping place for the train. Here the conductor 
came to Wash, again and told him if he did not run 
slower, the passengers were going to leave. Wash, said, 
" Let them leave," and gave no promises. Some of them 
did leave, so also did one of the brakemen, and the bag- 
gageman, but away we went without them to 0., where a 
message from head-quarters was awaiting us, telling them 
to take Wash, from the engine and put another man on in 
his place. I told him of the message, and picking up his 
coat, he gob off and staggered to a bench on the stoop of 
the depot, where he laid down, seemingly to sleep. I 
started back to the engine, but Wash, called after me, and 
asked me " how we got the orders to take him off ? " I 
told him " by telegraph." " Humph," said he, rolling 

over, " wish Fd known that, the confounded dispatch never 
shoidd have passed 



me J 



/" 



BETWEEN STEAM AND LIGHTNING. 105 

Wash, of course was not reinstated, but the " plank- 
roader" never made the running time of any of the fast 
trains with any other man on the " foot-board." 



AN ABRUPT "CALL." 



AN ABRUPT "CALL." 



" Hi White," as he was familiarly called, was an 
engineer on the same road with me. He has been run- 
ning there for over ten years, and, although Hi is one 
of those mad wags who are never so happy as when " run- 
ning a rig" on some of their cronies, he was univer- 
sally acknowledged to be one of the most competent and 
careful men that ever " pulled a plug " on a locomotive. 

In Hi's long career as a runner, he, of course, has 
met with innumerable hair-breadth 'scapes; some of 
them terribly tragic in their accessories ; others irresistibly 
comic in their termination, although commencing with fair 
prospect for a fearful end. Of this latter kind was an 
adventure of his, which he used to call " making a morn- 
ing call under difficulties." Hi used to run the 

(109 ) 



110 AN ABRUPT " CALL." 

Morning Express, or, as it was called, the " Shanghae 
run," which left the Southern terminus of the road at 6 
o'clock A.M. It was a " fast run," making the length 
of the road (one hundred and forty-one miles) in three 
and a half hours. Hi ran the engine Columbia, a 
fast " machine," with seven feet driving wheels, and a 
strong inclination to mount the rail and leave the track on 
the slightest provocation. About midway of the road 
there was a large brick house, standing but a rod or two 
from the track and on the outside of a sharp curve. As 
Hi was passing the curve one day, running at full 
speed, some slight obstruction caused the Columbia to 
leave the track, breaking the coupling between it and the 
train, thus leaving the cars on the track. Away went the 
Columbia, making the gravel fly until she met with an 
obstruction in the shape of this very brick house, which 
the engine struck square in the broad-side, and, with 
characteristic contempt of slight obstacles, crashed its way 
through the wall and on to the parlor floor, which, being 
made for lighter tread, gave way and precipitated the en- 
gine into the cellar beneath, leaving only the hind end of 
the tender sticking out of the breach in the wall. Hi, who 
had jumped off at the first symptom of this furious on- 



AN ABRUPT " CALL." Ill 

slaught, looked to see if there were any dead or wounded on 
the field of this " charge of his heavy brigade." Seeing 
that he and his fireman were both safe, he turned his 
attention to the Columbia, which he found " slightly in- 
jured but safely housed," lying coolly among pork 
barrels, apple bins and potato heaps, evidently with no 
present probability of continuing its course. By this time 
the people of the house, who were at breakfast in the 
farther part of the building when the furious incursion 
upon their domestic economy took place, came rushing 
out, not knowing whether to prepare to meet friend or 
rebel foe. Yery naturally the first question put to Hi 
(who was renewing vegetable matter for present rumina- 
tion, i. e, taking a new chew of tobacco), was, '' What's 
the m.atter ? " This question was screamed to Hi, 
with the different intonations of the various members of 
the family. Hi coolly surveyed the frightened group 
and rephed, " Matter— nothing is the matter. I only 
thought T would call on you this morning, and pray," 
said he, with the most winning politeness, " donH put 
yourself to any trouble on my aceounty 



THE GOOD LUCK OF BEING OBSTINATE. 



THE GOOD LUCK OF BEING OBSTINATE. 



I THINK people generally look upon railroad men as a 
distinct species of the genus homo. Thej seem to regard 
them as a class who have the most utter disregard for 
human hfe, as perfectly careless of trusts imposed upon 
them, and as being capable of distinctly understanding 
rules the most obscure, and circumstances the most com- 
plicated. They seem to think a railroad man is bound to 
make time an}^ way, in the face of every difficulty, and 
to hold him absolutely criminal if he meets with any 
accident, or fails to see his way safe out of any trouble 
into which their urging may force him. My impression 
is that they are wrong, that railroad men have but human 

courage, but human foresight, and should be spared the 

(115) 



116 THE GOOD LUCK OF BEING OBSTINATE. 

most of the indiscriminate censure heaped upon them 
when an accident happens. 

If one were to judge from the words of the press and 
the finding of coroners' juries, he would infer that a pure 
accident, one unavoidable bj human foresight, was a thing 
unknown ; but if he will only think, for a moment, of all 
the circumstances, consider the enormous velocity at which 
trains move, the tremendous, strain thus thrown upon every 
portion of the road-bed and the machinery, I think the 
wonder will be why there are not more accidents. Think, 
for a moment, of one or two hundred tons' weight impelled 
through the air at a velocity of from one hundred to two 
hundred and forty feet per second, and tell me if you do 
not consider that the chances for damage are pretty nu- 
merous. 

I remember once being detained at a way-station with 
the Up Express, waiting for the Down Express to pass 
me. We were both, owing to snow and ice on the 
rails, sadly behind time, and I had concluded just to wait 
where I was, until we heard from the other train, though 
a liberal construction of the rules gave me the right to 
proceed "with due caution;" but I was afraid that, if any 
thing did happen, there would be two opinions as to what 



THE GOOD LUCK OF BEING OBSTINATE. 117 

" due caution" meant, so I held still. The passengers 
were all uneasy, as they always are, and stormed and 
fretted up and down, now coming to me and demanding, 
in just about such tones as we would imagine a newly 
caught she-bear to use, whether we intended " to keep 
them there all night?" whether I supposed "the traveling 
public would tamely submit to such outrages ? " if I thought 
they "had no rights in the premises?" etc. These and 
similar questions were put to me, some peevishly, some in 
a lordly manner, evidently with the intention of bullying 
me into a start. I generally maintained the, dirty but 
independent dignity of my position of " runner of that 
kettle ; " but these latter Sir Oracles, I told that I was 
too well used to dealing with fire, water, steam and rock 
to be scared by a little " wind." After a while there 
came a telegraphic dispatch, unsigned, undated, but say- 
ing, " Come ahead;" this raised a terrible " hillabaloo." 
The passengers crowded into the cars and looked for an 
immediate start. The conductor came to me and said 
that he thought we had better start. I told him " No : " 
that I infinitely preferred to run on good sohd rails rather 
than telegraph wires, at all times, and more especially 
when the wires brought such lame orders as these "Very 



118 THE GOOD LUCK OP BEING OBSTINATE. 

well," savs he, ^' I don't know but jou are right, but I 
shall leave you to console these passengers— I'm off to 
hide," and away he went. Pretty soon out they came by 
twos, threes, dozens and scores ; and I declare they need- 
ed consolation, for a madder set I never saw. Pshaw ! 
talk about '' hornets" and " bob-tailed bulls in fly-time ; " 
they ain't a circumstance to a passenger on a railroad 
train which is an hour behind time. Well, they blustered 
and stormed, shook their fists at me, and about twenty 
took down my name with the murderous hitent of " re- 
porting" me at head-quarters, and •' seeing about this 
thing" generally. At last some individual, bursting with 
wrath, called for an indignation meeting. The call was 
answered with alacrity. I attended as a disinterested 
spectator, of course ; a President and Secretary were ap- 
pointed, several speeches were made, overflowing with 
eloquence, and all aimed at me, but carrying a few shots 
for every body on the train, even to the boy that sold pa- 
pers. This much had been done, and the committee on 
"resolutions which should be utterly annihilating," had 
just retired, when a whistle was heard up the track, and 
down came an extra engine, running as fast as she could, 
carrying no light, but bringing news that the " down 



THE GOOD LUCK OF BEING OBSTINATE. 119 

train" was oif the track eleven miles above, and bringing 
a requisition for all the doctors in town to care for the 
wounded, who were numerous. The " resolution commit- 
tee" adjourned sine die. I was never reported, for they 
all saw that, had I done as they wished me to, I would 
have met this extra engine and rendered a few more doc- 
tors necessary for my own train. The blunder of the 
telegraph was never explained, but blunder it was, and 
the more firm was I never to obey a telegraphic dispatch 
without it was clear and distinct, " signed, sealed and 
delivered." 



HUMAN LIVES vs. THE DOLLAR 



HUMAN LIVES vs. THE DOLLAR. 



Cattle and horses on the track are a continual source 
of annoyance to engineers, and have been the occasion 
of many serious accidents. On the W. & S. Railroad, 
not many years since, an accident occurred, with the cir- 
cumstances of which I was familiar, and which I will re- 
late. 

George Dean was one of the most accomplished and 
thorough engineers that I ever knew. He was run- 
ning the Night Express, a fast run ; while I was running 

the through freight, and met him at C station. I 

arrived there one night " on time," but George was con- 
siderably behind ; so I had to wait for him. Just before 
George arrived at the station, he had to cross a bridge of 

n23) 



124 HUMAN LIVES V. THE DOLLAR. 

about 200 feet span ; it was a covered bridge, and the 
rails were some 30 feet from the w^ater below. 

I had been there waiting for him to pass, for over half 
an hour, when I heard his whistle sound at a " blind 
crossing" about a mile distant ; so I knew he was com- 
ing ; and as George was a pretty fast runner, I thought T 
would stand out on the track and see him come, as the 
track was straight, there, for nearly a mile. 

I saw the glimmer of his head-light w^hen he first turn 
ed the curve and entered upon the straight track, and 
pulled out my v/atch to time him to the station, through 
which he was to pass without stopping. The light grew 
brighter and brighter as he advanced with the speed of 
the wind, and he was within sixty feet of the bridge, when 
I saw an animal of some kind, I then knew not what it was, 
but it proved to be a horse, dart out on the track, right in 
front of the engine. George saw it. I know, for he gave 
the whistle for brakes, and a series of short puffs to scare 
the horse from the track ; but it was of no use : the horse 
kept right on and ran towards the bridge. Arrived there, 
instead of turning to one side, it gave a jump right on to 
the bridge, and fell down between the ties, and there, of 
course, he hung. On came George's ponderous engine, 



HUMAN LIVES V. THE DOLLAR. 125 

and striking the horse, was thrown from the track into 
the floor timbers of the bridge, which gave way beneath 
the weight and the tremendous concussion, and down went 
the engine standing upon its front, the tender dropped in 
behind it, and the baggage car and one passenger car 
were heaped together on top of them both. I saw them 
drop, heard the crash, and at once, with the other men 
of my train, started to relieve any that might be caught 
in the wreck. Leaping down the embankment forming 
the approach of the bridge, I v/aded througli the stream 
to where the engine stood, my fireman following close be- 
hind me. Looking up, we saw George caught on the 
head of the boiler. He was able to speak to us, and told 
us that he was not much hurt, but his legs were caught so 
that he could not move, and from the heat of the boiler 
he was literally roasting to death. We cHmbed up to 
where he was caught, to see if we could move him or get 
him out ; but alas ! he could not be helped. His legs lay 
right across the front of the boiler, and on them were 
resting some timbers of the broken baggage car, while the 
passenger car was so wedged into the bridge that there 
was no prospect of lifting it so as to get George out for 
many hours. I went and got him some water, and with 



126 HUMAN LIVES V. THE DOLLAR. 

it bathed his forehead and cooled his parching lips ; he 
talking to me all the time and sending word to his wife 
and children. For a few minutes, he bore up under the 
pain most manfully ; but at last, it grew too intolerable 
for anv human being to bear, and George, than whom a 
braver soul never existed, shrieked and screamed in his 
agony. He begged and prayed to die. He entreated 
us to kill him, and put an end to his sufferings — he even 
cursed us for not doing it, asking us how we could stand 
and see him roast to death, knowing, too, as we did and 
he did, that he could not be saved. He begged for a 
knife to kill himself with, as he would rather die by his 
own hand at once than to linger in such protracted, awful 
agony. Oh ! it was terrible, to stand there and see the 
convulsive twitchings of his muscles, to hear him pray 
for death, to v/atch him as his eyes set vfith pain, and 
hear his agonized entreaties for death any way, no matter 
how, so it was quick. At last it was ended, the horrible 
drama closed, and he died ; but his shrieks will never die 
out from the memory of those who heard them. The 
next day, when we got him out, we found his legs were 
literally jammed to pieces and then baked to a cinder. 
The fireman we found cauizht between the trucks of the 



HUMAN LIVES V. THE DOLLAR. 127 

tender and the driving-wheel of the engine, and apparent- 
ly not a bone left whole in his bodj ; he was utterly 
smashed to pieces. You could not have told, only from 
his clothing, which hung in bloody fragments to his corpse, 
that he had ever been a human being. We got them out 
at last and buried them. Sadly and solemnly we followed 
them to the grave, and thought, with much dread, of 
when it would be our turn. They lie together, a plain 
stone marking their resting-place, and no railroad man 
ever visits their graves without a tear in tribute to their 
memory. 

Thus they died, and thus all that knew them still mourn 
them. But the noise of the accident had scarcely ceased 
echoing amidst the adjoining hills, ere the owner of the 
horse was on the ground wishing to know if any one was 
there who was authorized to pay for his horse ; this, too, 
in the face of the fact, afterward proven, that he himself 
had turned the horse upon the track, there to filch the 
feed. 



FORTY-TWO MILES PER HOUR, 



FORTY-TWO MILES PER HOUR. 



Nearly every person that we hear speak of travel by 
rail, thinks that he has, on numerous occasions, traveled 
at the rate of sixty miles an hour ; but among engineers 
this is known to be an extremely rare occurrence. I my- 
self have run some pretty fast machines, and never had 
much fear as to " letting them out," and I never attained 
that speed for more than a mile or two on a down grade, 
and with a light train, excepting on one or two occasions. 
Supposing, however, reader, that we look a little into what 
an engine has to do in order to run a mile in a minute, or 
more time. Say we go down to the depot, and take a 
ride on this Morning Express, which goes to Columbus 
in one hour and thirty-five minutes, making two stops. 
We will get aboard of the Deshler, one of the smartest 

(131) 



182 FORTY- TWO MILES PER HOUR. 

engines on the road, originallj built by Moore & Richard- 
son, but since then thoroughly overhauled, and in fact re- 
juvenated, by that prince of m<zs^er-mechanics, '' Dick 
Bromley." And you may be sure she is in good trim for 
good work, as it is a habit with Dick to have his en- 
gines all so. She is run by that little fellow you see there, 
always looking good-natured, but getting around his engine 
pretty fast. That is " Johnny Andrews," and you can 
warrant that if Dick Bromley builds an engine, and 
Johnny runs her, and you ride behind her, you will 
have a pretty fast ride if the time demands it. The train 
is seven minutes behind time to-day, reducing the time to 
Columbus — 53 miles — to one hour and twenty-eight min- 
utes, and that with this heavy train of ten cars, all fully 
loaded. After deducting nine minutes more, that will 
undoubtedly be lost in making twO stops, this will demand 
a speed of forty-two miles per hour ; which I rather guess 
will satisfy you. You see the tender is piled full of wood, 
enough to last your kitchen fire for quite a while ; but 
that has got to be filled again ; for, ere we reach Columbus, 
we shall need two cords and a half. Look into the tank ; 
you see it is full of water ; but we shall have to take 
some more ; for between here and Columbus, 1558 gallons 



FORTY-TWO MILES PER HOUR. 133 

of water must be flashed into steam, and sent traveling 
through the cylinders. 

But we are off; you see this hill is before us ; and look- 
ing behind, you will see that another engine is helping us. 
Notwithstanding that help, let us see what the Deshler is 
doing, and how Johnny manages her. She is carrying 
a head of steam which exerts on every square inch of the 
internal surface of the boiler, a pressure of 120 pounds. 
Take a glance at the size of the boiler ; it is 17 feet 6 
inches long, and 40 inches in diameter. Inside of it there 
is the fire-box, 48 inches long, 62 inches deep, and 36 
across. From this to the front of the engine, you see a 
lot of flues running. There are 112 of these, 10 feet 
6 inches long, and two inches in diameter ; and of the 
inner surface of all this, every square inch is subjected 
to the aforesaid pressure, which amounts to a pressure of 
95,005 pounds on each flue. Don't you think, if there is 
a weak place anywhere in this boiler, it will be mighty 
apt to give out ? And if it does, and this enormous 
power is let loose at once, vv-here will vou and I go to ? 
Don't be afraid, though ; for tins boiler is built strongly ; 
every plate is right and sound. Open that fire-door. Do 
you hear that enormously loud cough ? That is the noise 



134 rORTY-TWO MILES PER HOUR. 

made by the escape, through an opening of 31 square 
inches onlj, of the steam which has been at work in the 
cjlinder. You can feel how it shakes the whole engine. 
And see how it stirs up the fire. Whew ! isn't that 
rather a hot-looking hole ? The heat there is about 2800° 
Centigrade scale. But we begin to go faster. Listen ! 
try if you can count the sounds made by the escaping 
steam, which we call the " exhaust." No, you cannot ; 
but at every one of those sounds, two solid feet of steam 
has been taken from the boilers, used in the cylinder, 
where it exerted on the piston, which is fourteen inches 
in diameter, a pressure of nine tons, and then let out 
into the air, making, in so doing, that noise. There are 
four of those " exhausts " to every revolution of the 
driving-wheels, during which revolution we advance only 
17f feet. Now we are up to our speed, making 208 
revolutions, changing 33J gallons of water into steam 
every minute we run, and burning eight solid feet of 
wood. 

We are now running a mile in one minute and twenty- 
six seconds ; the driving-wheels are revolving a little more 
than 3 J times in each second ; and steam is admitted into, 
and escapes from, the cylinders fifteen times in a second, 



FORTY-TWO MILES PER HOUR. 185 

exerting each time a force of nearly nine tons on the 
pistons. We advance 61 feet per second. Our engine 
weighs 22 tons ; our tender about 17 tons ; and each car 
in the train with passengers, about 17 tons ; so that our 
whole train weighs, at a rough calculation, 209 tons, and 
should we strike an object sufficiently heavy to resist us, 
we would exert upon it a momentum of 12,749 tons — a 
force hard to resist ! 

Look out at the driving-wheels ; see how swiftly they 
revolve. Those parallel rods, that connect the drivers, 
each weighing nearly 150 pounds, are slung around at the 
rate of 210 times a minute. Don't you think that enough 
is required of an engine to run 42 miles per hour, with- 
out making it gain 18 miles in that time ? Those tender- 
wheels, too, have been turning pretty hvely meanwhile — 
no less than 600 times per minute. Each piston has, in 
each minute we have traveled, moved about 700 feet. 
So you see that, all around, we have traveled pretty 
fast, and here we are in Columbus, "on time;" and I 
take it you are satisfied with 42 miles per hour, and will 
never hereafter ask for 60. 

Let us sum up. and then bid good-bye to the Deshler 
and her accommodating runner, Johnny Andrews. The 



136 FORTY-TWO MILES PER HOUR. 

drivers have revolved 16,830 times. Steam has entered 
and been ejected from the cylinders 67,320 times. Each 
piston has traveled 47,766 feet, and we have run only 
55 miles, at the rate of 42 miles per hour. 



USED UP AT LAST 



USED UP AT LAST. 



The old proverb, that " the pitcher which goes often 
to the well returns broken at last,'' receives, in the lives 
of railroad men, frequent confirmation. I have known 
some men who have run engines for fifteen or twenty 
years and met with no accident worthy of note to them- 
selves, their trains, or to any of the passengers under 
their charge ; but if they continue running, the iron hand 
of fate will surely reach them. 

Old Stephen Hanford, or " Old Steve," as he is called 
by everybody who knows him, had been running engines 
for twenty-five years, with an exemption from the calami- 
ties, the smash-ups and break-downs, collisions, etc., that 
usually checker the life of an engineer, that was consid- 
ered by everybody most remarkable. Night and day, 

(139) 



140 USED UP AT LAST. 

in rain, snow and mist, he has driven his engine on over 
flood and field, and landed his passengers safely at their 
journey's end, always. No matter how hard the storm 
blew, with sharp forked lightnings, with muttering thun- 
ders, and the pitiless, driving rain. Old Steve's engine, 
which from its belching smoke and eating fire seemed the 
demon of the storm, came in safe, and the old man, whose 
eye never faltered, whose vigil never relaxed, got off from 
his engine, and after seeing it safely housed, went to his 
home, not to dream of the terrors and miseries of collis- 
ions, of the shrieks and groans of victims whom his en- 
gine had trodden down and crushed with tread as resist- 
less as the rush of mountain torrents. No ; all these sad- 
dening reflections were spared him, for he had never had 
charge of an engine when any fatal accident happened. 
Old Steve was one of the most careful men on an en- 
gine that I ever saw. He was always on the watch, and 
was active as a cat. Nothing escaped his watchful glance, 
and in any emergency his presence of mind never forsook 
him ; he went at once to doing the right thing, and did it 
quickly. 

The old man's activity never diminished in the least, 
but his eyesight grew weak, and he thought he would leave 



USED UP AT LAST. 141 

the main line, and, like an old war-horse, in his latter 
days be rid of the hurrj-skurrj of the road. So he took 
a switch engine in the yard at Rochester and worked there, 
leaving the fast running in which he delighted to his 
younger comrades, many of whom received their first in- 
sight to the business from Old Steve. He had been 
there about a year at work, very well contented with his 
position, a little outside of the great whirling current of 
the road on which he had so long labored, and was one 
day standing beside his engine, almost as old a stager as 
himself, when with an awful crash the boiler exploded. 
Old Steve was not hurt by the explosion, but he start- 
ed back so suddenly that he fell upon the other track, up 
which another engine was backing ; the engineer of 
which, startled, no doubt, by the explosion, did not see 
the old man, until too late, and the wheels passed over 
him, crushing his leg off, just above the knee. They 
picked him up and carried him home ; " the pitcher had 
been often to the well," — it was broken at last. Owing 
to his vigorous constitution, the shock did not kill him ; 
the leg was amputated, and now, should you ever be in the 
depot at Rochester, you will most likely see Old Steve 
there, hobbling around on one leg and a pair of crutches, 



142 USED UP AT LAST. 

maimed, indeed, but as cheerful as ever. He said to me, 
" I am used up, but what right had I to expect any thing 
else ? In twenty-five years I have bidden good-bye to 
many a comrade, who, in the same business, met the stern 
fate which will most surely catch us all if we stick to the 
iron horse." 



A VICTIM OF LOW WAGES 



A VICTIM OF LOW WAGES. 



During an absence from home of several weeks, in the 

past summer, I traveled in safety, upwards of three 

thousand miles, but it was not because the danger was 

not there, not because the liabilities for accidents were not 

as great as ever ; it was because human foresight did not 

happen to err, and nature happened to be propitious. 

The strength of her materials was as much tried as ever, 

but they were in condition to resist the strain ; so I and 

my fellow passengers passed safely over many a place 

which awoke in me thrilling memories ; for in one place, 

the gates of death had been in former time apparently 

swung wide to ingulf me, but I escaped ; at another, I 

remember to have shut my eyes and held my breath, while 

my heart beat short and heavily, as the ponderous engine^ 
10 (145) 



146 A VICTIM OF LOW WAGES. 

of whicli I had the control, crushed the bones and mai gled 
the flesh of some poor wight caught upon the track, to 
save whom I had exercised every faculty I possessed, hut 
all in vain ; he was too near, and my train too heavy for 
me to stop in time to spare him. I met many of my old 
cronies during my absence, and, inquiring for others, heard 
the long-expected but saddening news, that they had gone ; 
their running was over, the dangers they had so often faced 
overcame them at last, and now they sleep where " signal 
lights " and the shrill whistle denoting danger, which have 
so often called all their faculties into play to prevent de 
struction and save life, are no longer heard. Others I 
met, who, in some trying time, had been caught and crushed 
by the very engines they had so often held submissive to 
their will, and now, maimed and crippled, they must 
hobble along till the almost welcome voice of death bids 
them come and lay their bones beside their comrades in 
danger, w^ho have gone before. 

A little paragraph in the papers last winter, announced 
that a gravel train, of which Hartwell Stark was engineer, 
and James Burnham conductor, had collided with a freight 
train, on the N. Y. C. R. R. ; that the fireman was killed, 
and the engineer so badly hurt that he was not expected 



A VICTIM OF LOW WAGES. 147 

to live. Perhaps a fuller account of this catastrophe 
may be instructive in order to show the risks run by rail- 
road men, the responsibility resting upon the most humble 
of them, and the enormous amount of suffering a man is 
capable of enduring and yet live. This gravel train " laid 
up " for the night at Clyde, and in the morning early, as 
soon as the freight trains bound west had passed, proceeded 
out upon the road to its work. It was the duty of the 
switchman to see that the trains had all passed, and report 
the same to the men in charge of the gravel train. This 
morning it was snowing very hard, the wind blew strong 
from the east, and take it altogether, it was a most un- 
pleasant time, and one very Hkely to put all trains behind. 
Knowing this, the conductor and engineer both asked the 
switchman if the freights had all passed. He replied 
positively that they had. So, without hesitation, they 
proceeded to their work. They had left their train of 
gravel cars at a " gravel pit," some sixteen miles distant ; 
so with the engine backing up aijd dragging the " caboose," 
in which were about thirty men, they started. They had 
got about ten miles on their way, the wind and snow still 
blowing in their faces, rendering it almost impossible for 
them to see any thing ahead, even in daylight — utterly 



148 A VICTIM OF LOW WAGES. 

SO in the darkness of that morning, just before daj — when, 
out of the driving storm, looking a very demon of de- 
struction, came thundering on at highest speed, the freight 
train, which the switchman had so confidently reported as 
having passed an hour before thej left Clyde. The engi- 
neer of the freight train jumped, and said that before he 
struck the ground he heard the collision. Hart tried to 
reverse his engine, but had not time to do it ; so he could 
not jump, but was caught in the close embrace of those 
huge monsters. The freight engine pushed the '' tender " 
of his engine up on to the " foot-board." It divided ; 
one part crushed the fireman up against the dome and 
broke in the ''fire-door;" the wood piled over on top of 
him, and the flames rushing out of the broken door soon 
set it on fire, and there he laj till he was taken out, 
eighteen hours afterward, a shapeless cinder of humanity. 
The other part caught Hart's hips between it and the 
" run-board," and rolled him around for about six feet, 
breaking both thigh-bones ; and to add to his sufferings a 
piece of the " hand-rail " was thrust clear through the 
flesh of both legs, and twisted about there till it made 
gashes six inches long. The steam pipe being broken off, 
the hissing steam prevented his feeble cries from being 



A VICTIM OF LOW WAGES. , 149 

heard, and as every man in the " caboose " was hurt, 
Hart began to think that iron rack of misery must surely 
be his death-bed. At last, however, some men saw him, 
but at first they were afraid to come near, being fearful 
of an explosion of the boiler. Soon, however, some more 
bold than the rest went to work, and procuring a T rail, 
they proceeded to pry the wreck apart, and release him 
from his horrible position. And so, after being thus sus^ 
pended and crushed for over half an hour, he was taken 
down, put upon a hand-car, and taken to his home at Clyde, 
which place he reached in five hours after the accident. 
No one expected him to live. The physicians were for an 
immediate amputation of both limbs, but to this Hart 
stoutly objected. So they finally agreed to wait forty- 
eight hours and see. At the end of that time — owing to 
his strong constitution and temperate habits of life — the 
inflammation was so light they concluded to leave poor Hart 
with both his legs, and there he has lain ever since. For 
twelve weeks he was never moved from his position in the 
bed, his clothes were never changed, and he never stirred 
so much as an inch ; and even to this day — May 20th — he is 
unable to turn in the bed, though he can sit up, and when 
I saw him, was sitting in the stoop cutting potatoes for 



150 A VICTIM OF LOW WAGES. 

planting, and apparently as happy as a child, to think he 
could once more snufF fresh air. 

I should think that such accidents (and they are of 
frequent occurrence) would teach the managers of railroads 
that the policy of hiring men who can be hired for twenty- 
five dollars a month, and who have so little judgment as to 
sleep on their posts, and then make such reports as this 
switchman did, endangering not only the property of the 
company, but also jeopardizing the lives of brave and true 
men like Hart Stark, and subjecting them to these linger- 
ing tortures, is suicidal to their best interests. Would not 
an extra ten dollars a month to all switchmen be a good 
investment, if in the course of a year it saved the life of 
one poor fireman, who otherwise would die as this poor 
fellow did ; or if it saved one cool and true man from the 
sufferings Hart Stark has for the past five months endured ? 



CORONERS' JURIES vs. RAILROAD MEN 



CORONERS' JURIES vs. RAILROAD MEN. 



Coroner's juries are, beyond a doubt, a very good institu- 
tion, and were established for a good purpose ; they inves- 
tigate sudden deaths, while the matter is still fresh, before 
the cause has become hidden or obscured by lapse of time, 
and in most cases they undoubtedly arrive at a just con- 
clusion ; but in cases of railroad accidents, I never yet 
knew one that was not unjust, to a greater or less degree, 
in its verdict against employees of the company on the 
train at the immediate time of the occurrence. 

I know that in saying this I fly into the face of all the 

newspapers of the land, for they have a stereotyped sneer 

in these words, '' Of course nobody was to blame," at every 

coroner's jury that fails to censure somebody, or to adjudge 

some one guilty of wilful murder. Nevertheless I believe 

a53) 



154 

it, and unhesitatingly declare it. Most generally it is the 
engineer and conductor who are censured, sometimes the 
brakemen or switchmen ; but rarely or never is it the right 
one who is branded and placed in the newspaper pillory 
as unfit to occupy any position of trust, and guilty of the 
death of those killed and the wounds of those wounded. 
As to an accident that could not be avoided by human 
forethought, that idea is scouted, and if a coroner's jury 
does ever so far forget what is expected of it by these edi- 
tors — who are the self-elected bull-dogs of society, and 
must needs bark or lose their dignity — why no words are 
sufficiently sarcastic, no sentences sufficiently bitter, to 
express the contempt which they feel for that benighted 
coroner's jury. To be sure they know nothing, or next 
to nothing, of the circumstances, and the jury knows all 
about them. To be sure, iron will break and so will wood ; 
the insidious frost will creep in where man cannot probe, 
and render as brittle as glass what should be tough as 
steel ; watches will go wrong, and no hundred men can be 
found who will on all occasions give one interpretation to 
the same words. But what of that ? 

Why, the bare idea that any accident upon any road 
can happen, and some poor devil of an engineer, con 



coroners' juries v. railroad men. 155 

ductor, brakeman or switchman not be ready at hand, to 
be made into a pack-horse on whom to pile all the accu- 
mulated bile of these men who, manj of them, have some 
private grudge to satisfy — the idea, I say, is preposterous 
to these men, and they fulminate their thunders against 
railroad men, until community gets into the belief that vir- 
tue, honesty, integrity or common dog sense are things of 
which a railroad man must necessarily be entirely desti- 
tute ; and they are looked upon with distrust, they are 
driven to become clannish, and frequently, I must confess, 
any thing but polite to the traveling public, whose only 
greeting to them is gruff fault-finding, or an incessant 
string of foolish questions. But are they so much to 
blame for this ? Would you, my reader, " cast your 
pearls before swine ? " and can you particularly blame 
men for not being over warm to the traveling community 
which almost invariably treats them as machines, desti- 
tute of feeling, for whose use it pays so much a mile ? 
Railroad men, though, are not impolite, nor short to every- 
body. Ask a jovial, good-natured man, who has a smile 
and a pleasant word for everybody, and I'll warrant he 
will tell you that he gets treated well enough on railroads; 
that the engineer answers his questions readily ; that the 



156 coroners' juries v. railroad men. 

brakeman sees that he has a seat ; that his baggage is 
no.t bursted open every trip he takes, and the conductor 
does not wake him up out of his sleep every five minutes 
to ask for his ticket. But ask a pursy, lordly individual, 
whose lack of brains is atoned for by the capacity of his 
stomach, who never asks for any xhing, always orders it, 
and who always praises the last road he was on,- and d — s 
the one he is now on ; or ask a vinegar-looking, hatchet- 
faced old maid, who has eight bandboxes, a parasol, an um- 
brella, a loose pair of gloves, a work-bag and a poodle dog, 
who always has either such a cold that she knows she 
" shall die unless that window in front is put down," or 
else is certain that she " shall suffocate unless more air is 
let into the car," and who is continually asking whoever 
she sees with a badge on, whether the '^ biler is going to 
bust," or if " that last station ain't the one she bought 
her ticket for ? "—ask either of these (and there are a 
great many travelers who, should they see this, would de- 
clare that I meant to be personal), and they will tell you 
that railroad men are " rascals, sir! scamps, sir! every 
one of them, sir ! Why, only the other day I had a bran- 
new trunk, and I particularly cautioned the baggageman 
and conductor to be careful, and would you believe it, 



coroners' juries v. railroad men. 157 

sir ? when I got it, two — yes, sir ! two — of the brass 
nails were jammed. Railroad men, from the dirty engi- 
neer to the stuck-up conductor, are bent on making the 
public as uncomfortable as they can, sir ! " Reader, take 
my advice, and when you want any thing, go to the prop- 
er person and politely ask for it, and you will get it ; but 
don't jump off and ask the engineer at every station how 
far it is to the next station ? and how fast he ever did 
run? and if he ever knew John Smith of the Pontiac, 
and Buckwheat of the Sangamon and Pollywog road, one 
or the other, but really you forget which ; but no matter, 
he must know him, for he looked so and so. Take care; 
while you are describing the venerable John Smith, that 
long oil-can may give an ugly flirt, and your wife have 
good cause for grumbling at your greasy cassimere inex- 
pressibles ; or a wink from the engineer to his funny fire- 
man, may open that " pet cock," and your face get washed 
with rather nasty feeling water, and the shock might not 
be good for you. Don't bore the conductor with too 
many questions. If you ask civil questions, he will civ- 
illy answer you; but if you bore him too much by asking 
how fast " this ingine can run ? " he may get cross, or 
he may tell how astonishingly fast the celebrated and 



158 COROXEKS' JURIES V. RAILROAD MEN. 

mythical Thomas Pepper used to run the equally cele- 
brated and mythical locomotive, " Blowhard." I started 
this article to tell a story illustrating my opinion of coro- 
ners' juries, but have turned it into a sort of homily on 
the grievances of railroad men. No matter ; the story 
will keep, and the traveling people deserve a little talking 
to about the way they treat railroad men. 



ADVENTURES 



OP 



AN IRISH RAILROAD MAN. 



ADVENTURES OF AN IRISH RAILROAD MAN. 



On a railroad, as everywhere else, one meets with de- 
cidedly " rich" characters — those whose every act is 
mirth-provoking, and who, as the Irishman said, " can't 
open their mouths without putting their fut in it." Such 
an one was Billy Brown, who has been, for nearly thirteen 
years, a brakeman on one road ; who has run through and 
escaped many dangers ; who has seen many an old com- 
rade depart this life for — let us hope, a better one. 
Scarce an accident has happened on the road in whose 
employ he has been so long, but Billy has somehow been 
there ; and always has Billy been kind to his dying 
friends. Many a one of them has breathed out his last 
sigh in Billy's ear ; and I have often heard him crooning 
out some wild Irish laments (for Billy is a full-blooded 

11 (161) 



162 ADVENTURES OE AN IRISH RAILROAD MAN. 

Patlander), as he held in his lap the head of some of his 
comrades whose life was fast ebbing away from a man- 
gled limb. I well remember one time, when one of Billy's 
particular cronies, Mike — the other name has escaped my 
memory — was missing from the train to which he was at- 
tached. A telegraphic dispatch was sent to the last sta- 
tion to see if he was left there ; but, no ! he was seen to 
get aboard the train as it left the station. So the conclu- 
sion was clear that Mike had fallen off somewhere on the 
road. Half a dozen of us, Billy with the rest, jumped 
into a hand- car. and went back to find him. We went 
once over the road without seeing any thing ; but, as we 
came back, on passing the signboard which said " 80 rods 
to the drawbridge," we saw some blood on it ; and, on 
looking down under the trestlework, we saw poor Mike's 
body lying half in the water and half on the rocks. It 
was but an instant ere we were down there ; but the first 
look convinced us that he was dead. As the train was 
passing over the bridge, he had incautiously put out his 
head to look ahead, and it had come in contact with the 
signboard, and was literally smashed flat. No sooner had 
the full conviction that Mike was dead taken possession of 
Billy, than he whops down on his knees, and commences 



ADVENTURES OF AN IRISH RAILROAD MAN. 163 

kissing the fellow's bloody face, at the same time, with 
many tears, apostrophizing his body somewhat after this 
fashion : " Oh ! wirra, wirra, Mike dear ! Mike dear ! 
and is this the way ye're afther dyin' to git yer bloody 
ould hed smashed in wid a dirty old guideboord ? " 

We all felt sad, and sympathized fully with Billy's 
grief; but the ludicrousness with which he expressed it, 
was too much for any of us ; and we turned away, not to 
hide a tear, but to suppress a smile, and choke down a 
laugh. 

But Billy v/as very clannish' ; and, to use his own ex- 
pression, " the passenger might go hang, if there was any 
of the railroad byes in the muss." But as soon as Billy's 
fears as to any of his comrades being injured were allayed, 
no man could be more ej95cient than he in giving aid to 
anybody. Billy was true to duty, and never forgot what 
to do, if it was only in the usual routine of his business. 
Outside of that, however, he could commit as many Irish 
bulls as any one. 

I well remember one night I had the night freight to 
haul. We were going along pretty good jog, when the 
bell rf^ng for me to stop. I stopped and looked back to 
see what could be the matter. I saw no stir ; so after 



104 ADVENTURES OF AN IRISH RAILROAD MAN. 

waiting awhile, I started back to see if I could find any 
one. After getting back about twenty cars, I found that 
the train was broken in two, and that the rest of the cars 
were away back out of sight. I hallooed to my fireman 
to bring a light, and started on foot back around the 
curve, to see where they were. I got to the curve, and 
saw a light coming up the track towards me ; the man 
who carried it was evidently running as fast as he could. 
I stopped to see who it was ; and in a few moments he 
approached near enough to hail me — when, mistaking me 
for a trackman, and without slackening his speed the 
least, Billy Brown — for it was he — bellowed out, with a 
voice like a stentor, only broken by his grampus-like 
blowing, " I say, I say, did yees see iver innything of a 
train goin' for Albany like h — 1 jist now?" I believe I 
never did laugh quite so heartily in my life, as I did then ; 
and Billy, turning around, addressed me in the most ag- 
grieved manner possible, sr/ing: " Pon me sowl now, 
Shanghi, its mighty manp / yees to be scarin' the life out 
of me wid that laff of . jurs, an' I strivin' as hard as iver 
I could to catch up wid yees, and bring yees back, to take 
the resht of yere train which ye were afther lavin in the 
road a bit back." 



ADVENTURES OF AN IRISH RAILROAD MAN. 165 

Another adventure of Billy's, at which we liked to 
have killed ourselves with laughter, and Billy himself 
liked to have died from fright, occurred in this wise : I 
was taking the stock train down the road one very dark 
night, and Billy was one of the brakemen. Attached to 
the rear of the train v/ere five empty emigrant cars, 
whicji we were hauling over the road. I was behind 
time, and was running about as fast as I could, to make 
up the lost time ; when the bell rang for me to stop. I 
stopped ; and going back to see what v/as the matter, I 
found that two of the emigrant cars had become detached'' 
from the train, and been switched off into the river, just 
there very close to the track and very deep ; and there 
they lay, one of them clear out of sight, and the other 
cocked up at an angle of about 45 degrees, with one end 
sticking out of the water about six feet. On looking 
around, I found that all the men were there on hand, ex- 
cept Billy ; and he was nowhere to be found. We at 
last concluded that he must have been in the cars that were 
thrown into the river, and was drowned. But in this we 
were soon shown our error ; for, from the car that was 
sticking out of the water, came a confused sound of 
splashing, and praying, and swearing, which soon convin- 



166 ADVENTURES OF AN IRISH RAILROAD MAN. 

cecl US that Billy was at least not dead. We hallooed at 
•him, and asked him if he was hurt. His answer was, 
" Divil a hurt, but right nigh drowned ; an how'll I get 
out o' this?" We told him to get out of the door. 
'' But it's locked." " Unlock it then." " Shure, frow me 
a kay an' I will." " Where is your own key ? " " Divil 
a wan o' me knows. Gone drownded I ixpect." " How 
deep is the water where you are, Billy ? " " Up till me 
chin, an' the tide a risin'. Oh ! murther, byes, hilp me out 
o' this ; for I'm kilt intirely wid the wet and the cowld 

,and the shock til me syshtem " But we told him 

we couldn't help him, and that he must crawl out of a 
window. " Howly Moses," says Billy, '' an' don't ye 
know these is imigrant cars, an' the windows all barred 
across to kape thim fules from sticking out their heads ? 
an' how'll I get out ? Byes, byes, wad ye see me drown, 
an' I so close to land, an' in a car to bute ? Ah ! now 
cease yere bladgin, an' hilp me out o' this." After both- 
ering him to our hearts' content, we got a plank, and 
crawled out to the car, only about ten feet from shore, 
and cutting a hole in the top, soon had Billy at liberty. 



A BAD BRIDGE. 



A BAD BRIDGE, 



One cold winter's night, while I was running on the 

H Road, I was to take the Night Express down the 

road. The day had been excessively stormy ; the snow 

had fallen from early dawn till dark, and blown and drifted 

so on the track, that all trains were behind time. Espec 

ially was this so on the upper end of the road ; the lower 

end, over which I was to run, was not so badly blockaded ; 

in fact, on the southern portion, the storm had been of 

rain. The train came in three hours behind, consisting of 

twenty cars, all heavily loaded with grumbling, discontented 

passengers. This was more of a train than I could handle 

with my engine, even on the best of rail ; but where the 

rail was so slippery with snow or ice as it was that night, 

it was utterly impossible for me to do any thing with it. 

(169) 



170 A BAD BRIDGE. 

So, orders were given for another engine to couple in with 
me ; and George P , with the Oneida, did so. 

I was on the lead. George coupled in behind me. We 
both had fast " machines ; " and in a little quiet talk we 
had before starting, we resolved to do some pretty fast 
running where we could. 

The hungry passengers at last finished their meal, it 
being a refreshment station ; the bell was rang ; " all 
aboard " shouted ; and we pulled out. Like twin brothers 
those engines seemed to work. Their '-' exhausts " were as 
one, and each with giant strength tugged at the train. 
We plowed through the snow, and it flew by us in fleecy, 
feathery flakes, on which our lights shone so bright that 
it seemed as if we were plunging into a cloud of silver 
dust. On ! on ! we rushed ; the few stops we had to make 
were made quickly ; and past the stations at which we 
were not to stop, we rushed thunderingly : a jar, a rumble, 
a shriek of the whistle, and the glimmering station-lights 
were away back out of sight. 

At last we were within fourteen miles of the terminus 
of our journey. Both engines were doing their utmost, 
and the long train behind us was trailing swiftly on. Soon 
the tedious night-ride would be over ; soon the weary 



A BAD BRIDGE. 171 

limbs might rest. We were crossing a pile bridge in the 
middle of which was a draw. The rising of the water in 
the river had lifted the ice, which was frozen to the piles, 
and thus, I suppose, weakened the bridge, so that, when 
our two heavj engines struck it, it gave away. I was 
standing at my post, when, by the sudden strain and drop- 
ping of the engine, I kneAv that we were off the track, 
but had no idea of the real nature of the calamity. My 
engine struck her forward end upon the abutments of the 
bridge, knocking the forward trucks from under her. She 
held there but an instant of time ; but in that instant 1 
and my fireman sprang upon the runboard, and from thence 
to the solid earth. We turned in time to see the two en- 
gines go down into the water, there thirty feet deep ; and 
upon them were piled the baggage, mail and express cars, 
while the passenger cars were some thrown from the track 
on one side, some on the other. The terrible noise made 
by the collision and the hissing made by the cold w^aters 
wrapping the two engines in their chill embrace, deafened 
and appalled us for an instant ; but the next, we were 
running back to help the wounded. We found many 
wounded and seven dead amidst the wreck of the cars ; 
but seven more were missing, and among them were six 



172 A BAD BRIDGE. 

of the railroad men. Aiter searching high and low^ 
amidst the portion of the wreck on dry land, we with one 
accord looked shudderinglj down into those black, chilling 
waters, and knew that there they lay dead. All night 
long we sat there. The wild wintry blasts howled around 
us ; the cold waters gurgled and splashed amid the wreck ; 
we could hear the wounded groan in their pains ; but we 
listened in vain for the voices we were wont to hear. The 
chill tide, over which the ice was even then congealing 
anew, covered them. Mayhap they were mangled in the 
collision, and their shriek of pain was hushed and drowned 
as the icy waters rippled in over their lips. We almost 
fancied, when we threw the light of our lanterns upon the 
black flood, that we could see their white faces turned up 
toward us, frozen into a stony, immovable look of direst 
fear and agonizing entreaty. 

Morning came, and still we could not reach our friends 
and comrades. Days went by before they were found, 
but when found each man was at his post. None had 
jumped or flinched, all went dow^n with the wreck, and 
were found jammed in ; but their countenances wore no look 
of fear, the icy waters that congealed their expression, 
did not find a coward's look among them ; all wore a stern, 



A BAD BRIDGE. 173 

unflinching expression that would have shown you, had 
you seen them just ere they went down, that they would 
do as they did do, stick bravely to their posts, and go 
down with the wreck, doing their duty at the cost of their 
lives. 



A WARNING. 



A WARNING. 



I AM not, nor was I ever, superstitious. I do not be- 
lieve in dreams, signs, witches, hobgoblins, nor in anj of 
the rest of that ilk with which antiquated maidens were 
in olden time used to cheer the drooping spirits of child- 
hood, and send us urchins off to our bed, half scared to 
death, expecting to see some horrid monster step out 
from every corner of the room, and in unearthly accents 
declare his intention to " grind our bones for coffee," or 
do something else equally horrid, the contemplation of 
which was in an equal degree unfitted to render our sleep 
sound or our rest placid. Somehow the visitors from the 
other world, that children used to be told of, were never 
pretty nor angelic, but always more devilish than any thing 

else. But in these days, this has changed ; for the ghosts 
12 ' (177) 



178 A WARNING. 

in which gullible people deal now, are preeminently silly 
things. They use their superhuman strength in tumbling 
parlor furniture about the rooms, and in drumming on the 
floors und ceilings of bed-rooms. The old proverb is, that 
" every generation grows weaker and wiser." In this re- 
spect, however, we have reversed the proverb ; for a 
great many have grown stronger in gullibility and weaker 
in intellect, else we would not have so many spiritualists 
who wait for God and His angels to thump out their spe- 
cial revelations, or else tumble a table about the room to 
the tune of A B C. 

I have known, as have many, probably all of my read- 
ers, a great many people who professed to have the firmest 
faith in dreams and signs, who were always preadmonished 
of every event by some supernatural means, and who in- 
variably are looking out for singular events when they 
have been visited by a singular dream. I have never 
believed in these things, have always laughed at them, 
and do so still. Yet there is one circumstance of my 
life, of this kind, that is shrouded in mystery, that I can- 
not explain, that I know to be so, a.nd yet can scarcely 
beheve, when a warning was given to me somehow, I know 
not how, that shook me and influenced me, despite my ridi- 



A WARNING. 179 

cule of superstition and disbelief in signs or warnings of 
any kind ; so that I heeded it, and, by so doing, saved 
myself from instant death, and saved also many passen- 
gers who, had they known of the " warning" which in- 
fluenced me to take the steps which I did, would have 
laughed at me, and endeavored to drive me on. The 
facts are briefly as follows — I tell them, not attempting to 
explain them, nor oflbring any theory concerning them — 
neither pretending that angels or devils warned me, and 
only knowing that it was so : 

I was running a Night Express train, and had a train 
of ten cars — eight passenger and two baggage cars— and 
all were well loaded. I was behind time, and was very 
anxious to make a certain point; therefore I was using 
every exertion, and putting the engine to the utmost 
speed of which she was capable. I was on a section of 
the road usually considered the best running ground on 
the line, and was endeavoring to make the most of it, 
when a conviction struck me that I must stop. A some- 
thing seemed to tell me that to go ahead was dangerous, 
and that I must stop if I would save life. I looked back 
at my train, and it was all right. I strained my eyes 
and peered into the darkness, and could see no signal of 



180 A WARNING. 

danger, nor any thing betokening danger, and there I 
could see five miles in the daytime. I listened to the 
working of my engine, tried the water, looked at the 
scales, and all was right. I tried to laugh myself out of 
what I then considered a childish fear ; but, like Banquo's 
ghost, it would not down at my bidding, but grew stronger 
in its hold upon me. I thought of the ridicule I would 
have heaped upon me, if I did stop ; ,but it was all of no 
avail. The conviction — for by this time it had ripened 
into a conviction — that I must stop, grew stronger, and I 
resolved to stop ; and I shut off, and blew the whistle for 
brakes, .accordingly. I came to a dead halt, got off, and 
went ahead a little way, without saying any thing to any- 
body what was the matter. I had my lamp in my hand, 
tod had gone about sixty feet, when I saw what convinc- 
ed me that premonitions are sometimes possible. I drop- 
ped the lantern from my nerveless grasp, and sat down on 
the track, utterly unable to stand ; for there was a switch, 
the thought of which had never entered my mind, as it 
had never been used since I had been on the road, and 
was known to be spiked, but which now was open to lead 
me off the track. This switch led into a stone quarry, 
from whence stone for bridge purposes had been quarried, 



A WARNING. 181 

and the switch was left there, in case stone should be 
needed at any time ; but it was always kept locked, and 
the switch-rail spiked. Yet here it was, wide open ; and, 
had I not obeyed my preadmonition — warning — call it 
what you will — I should have run into it, and, at the 
end of the track, only about ten rods long, my heavy en- 
gine and train, moving at the rate of forty-five miles per 
hour, would have come into collision with a solid wall of 
rock, eighteen feet high. The consequences, had I done 
so, can neither be imagined nor described ; but they could, 
by no possibility, have been otherwise than fatally horrid. 
This is my experience in getting \varning3 from a source 
that I know not and cannot divine. It is a mystery to 
me — a mystery for which I am very thankful, however, 
although I dare not attempt to explain it, nor say whence 
it came. 



SINGULAR ACCIDENTS 



SINGULAR ACCIDENTS. 



The brothers G. are well known to all travelers by 
the route of the N. "Y. C. R. R. They have been a long 
time employed there, and by the traveling public and the 
company that employ them they are universally esteemed ; 
but the star of them all, the one most loved by his com- 
panions in toil, respected by travelers, and trusted by his 
employers, was Thomas, who met with his death in one 
of those calamitous accidents which so frequently mar 
the career of the railroad man. I was an eye-witness of 
the accident, and shall attempt to describe it. 

The day on which it occurred was a glorious summer 

one ; the breeze wafted a thousand pleasant odors to my 

senses ; the birds sang their sweetest songs. As I was 

journeying along the highway between Weedsport and 

(185) 



186 SINGULAR ACCIDENTS. 

Jordan, I heard the rumble of the approaching train, and 
as from where I was I could get a fair view of the passing 
train, which was the fastest on the road and was behind time 
a few minutes, I stopped to watch it as it passed. On it 
came, the sun glancing on the polished engine as it sped 
along like the wind. The track where I had stopped, was 
crossed by two roads, one of them crossing at right angles, 
the other diagonally ; between the two crossings there was 
a large pile of ties placed, probably eight feet from the 
track. I saw the engine, which was running at full speed, 
pass the pile, when suddenly, without warning, in a second 
of time, the cars went piling and crashing over the bank 
into a promiscuous heap, crushed into each other like egg- 
shells. One of them, a full-sized car, turned a complete 
somersault ; another was turned once and a half around, 
and lay with one end down in the ditch, and the other up 
to the track, while the third went crashing into its side. 
I hitched my horse and ran over to the scene, expecting, 
of course, that not a soul would be found alive ; arrived 
there, I found that no person was killed but poor Tom, and 
not over a dozen hurt, although the cars were crowded, 
and not a seat was left whole in the cars, which were 
perfectly riddled. They had already found Tom's body, 



SINGULAR ACCIDENTS. 187 

which lay under the truck of the first passenger car, which 
had been torn out, and one wheel lay on his neck. He 
had no need of care, no need of sj'mpathy, for the first 
crash killed him ; and so with no notice, no warning, no 
moment for a faintly whispered good-bye to those he loved, 
poor Tom passed away to the unknown shore, leaving many 
friends to grieve for him. 

We got him out, laid him beside the track, and stood 
solemnly by ; grieving that he, our friend, had gone and 
left no message for the wife who idolized him, the brothers 
who had loved him, or the friends who so fully appreciated 
his many noble qualities. While we stood thus speechless 
with heartfelt, choking grief, a man came up and asked 
for the man who had charge of the train. Some one. I for- 
get who, pointed to the mangled form of poor Tom and 
said, " There is all that is mortal of him." Said the thing 
— I will not call him man — " Dear me ! I'm sorry ; I 
wanted to find some one to pay for my cow." 

It was his cow that had caused the accident, by jumping 
out against the baggage car after the engine had passed. 

Another singular accident occurred on a road in the 
State of New York. An engine, to which something had 
happened that required a couple of sticks of wood out on 



188 SINGULAR ACCIDENTS. 

the run-board as fulcrum for a lever, was passing through 
a station at full speed, when one of the sticks, that had 
carelessly been left outside, fell off and was struck by the 
end of the main rod on the backward stroke ; impelled 
backwards by the force of the blow, it struck a man, stand- 
ing carelessly beside the track, full on the side of the head, 
fracturing his skull, and killing him instantly. 



LUDICROUS INCIDENTS. 



LUDICROUS INCIDENTS. 



There is not often much that is comic on the " rail," 
but occasionally an incident occurs that brings a loud 
guffaw from everybody who witnesses it. 

I remember once standing by the side of an engine that 
was switching in the yard. The fellow who was run- 
ning it I thought, from his actions while oiling, was drunk, 
so I watched him. He finished oiling, and clambered up 
on to the foot-board and attempted, in obedience to the 
orders of the yard-man, to start out. He jerked and 
jerked at the throttle-lever, but all to no effect ; the en- 
gine would not budge an inch. I saw from where I stood 
what was the matter, and although nearly bursting with 
laughter, I refrained from telHng him, but looked on to 
see the fun. After pulling for at least a dozen times, he 

■ ( 191 ) 



192 LUDICROUS INCIDENTS. 

bawled out to the jard-man that he couldn't go, and then 
gave another twitch, but it was of no use ; then he stepped 
back a step or two and looked at the throttle, with a look 
of the most stupid amazement that I ever saw ; his face 
expressed the meaning of the word " dumbfoundered '' 
completely. At last the fireman showed him what was the 
matter. It was simply that he had set the thumb-screw 
on the throttle-lever and neglected to unloose it, in each 
of his efforts. 

Another laughable affair occurred on one of the Eastern 
roads, I forget which. An engine stood on the switch, 
all fired up and ready to start ; the hands were all absent 
at dinner- A big black negro, who was loafing around the 
yard, became exceedingly inquisitive as to how the thing 
was managed — so up he gets and began to poke around. 
He threw the engine into the forward gear and gave it 
steam, of course not knowing what he was doing ; but of 
that fact the engine was ignorant, and at once, like a mettled 
steed, it sprung to full speed and av/ay it went, carrying 
the poor darkey an unwilling dead-head ride. He did 
not know how to stop it, and dare not jump, for, as he him- 
self expressed it, when found, '' Gorramity, she mos flew." 
The engine of course ran until steam ran down, which 



LUDICROUS INCIDENTS. 193 

^vas not in fourteen miles, and Mr. Darkev got off and put 
for the woods. He didn't appear at that station again 
for over a week. He said that "' ef de dura ting had a 
gon much furder he guessed he'd a bin white folks." 

'' 01 Long," an old friend of mine, tells a pretty good 
stnrj about an old white horse that he struck once. 01 
says that he was running at about thirty miles an hour, 
when an old white horse jumped out on the track right in 
front of the engine, which struck him and knocked him 
away down into the ditch, where he lay heels up. He of 
course expected that the horse was killed, and so reported 
on arriving at the end of the road ; but what was his sur- 
prise, on returning the next day, to see the self-same old 
nag quietly eating by the side of the road. 01 says he 
believes the old fellow did look rather sour at him, but he 
could not apologize. 

13 



EXPLOSIONS 



EXPLOSIONS 



It is easy to account for explosions of boilers on the 
hypothesis of too great pressure ; but it is hardly ever 
very easy — frequently utterly impossible — to account for 
the causes which induce that overpressure. There are, to 
be sure, a number of reasons which may be advanced. 
The engineer may have screwed the scales down too much, 
and thus, the safety-valve not operating to let off the sur- 
plus steam, a force may be generated within the boiler of 
such tremendous power that the strong iron will be rent 
and torn like tissue-paper. This I say may occur, but in 
my experience I never knew of such a case. Then again, 
the water may get so low in the boiler that, on starting 
the engine and injecting cold water upon the hot plates, 
steam will be generated so suddenly as not to find vent, 

(197) 



198 EXPLOSIONS. 

and in such enormous quantities and of so high a tem- 
perature as to explode the strongest boiler. Again, the 
water may be allowed to get low in the boiler, and the 
plates getting extremely hot, the motion of the train would 
generate steam enough by splashing water against them 
to cause an explosion. A proper care and due attention 
to the gauges would obviate this, and render explosion from 
these causes impossible. A piece of weak or defective 
iron, too, may have been put into the boiler at the time of 
its manufacture, and go on apparently safe for a long time, 
until at last it gives way under precisely the same pressure 
of steam that it has all along held with safety, or it may 
be with even less than it has often carried. How the 
engineer is to obviate this most fruitful cause of explosions, 
for the life of me I cannot see ; still if his engine does 
blow up, everybody and their wives will believe that it 
happened entirely through his neglect. A person who 
has never seen an explosion, can form no idea of the enor- 
mous power with which the iron is rent. I saw one engine 
that had exploded, at a time too when, according to the 
oaths of three men, it had a sufficiency of water and only 
95 lbs. of steam to the square inch, and was moving at 
only an ordinary speed, yet it was blown Qb feet from the 



EXPLOSI .>NS. 199 

track, and the whole of one side, from the '• check joint" 
back to the " cab," was torn wide open— the lower portion 
hanging down to the ground, folded over like a table-leaf, 
and the other portion laj clear over to the other side, 
^v'hile from the rent, the jagged ends of more than half 
of the flues projected, twisted into innumerable shapes. 
The frame on that side was broken, and the ends stuck 
out from the side at right angles with their former position. 
I saw another, where the whole boiler front was blown out 
and the engine tipped clear over backwards on to the ten- 
der and freight car, where the engineer and fireman were 
found, crushed into shapeless masses, lying in the midst 
of the wreck. The engine Manchester exploded while 
standing at a station on the H. R. R. R., and killed two 
out of five men, who were standing together beside the 
tender. Two of those who were left, deposed, on oath, that 
not three minutes before the accident occurred, the en- 
gineer tried the water and found fully three gauges, wliile 
there was a pressure of only ninety-five pounds to the 
square inch^ and it was blowing off. 

How to account for it no one could tell, so every one 
who knew any thing whatever in regard to such things, 
called it " another of the mysterious visitations of God." 



200 EXPLOSIONS. 

But the newspapers called it an evidence of gross care- 
lessness on the part of the engineer. 

Several explosions have been known where the upper 
tubes were found unhurt, while the lower ones were, some 
of them, found badlj burnt. The conclusion in these 
cases was that the tubes were too close together, and the 
water was driven awaj from them ; consequently^ the start- 
ing of the engine, or the pumping of cold water into the 
boiler, was suflScient to cause an explosion. 



HOW A FRIEND WAS KILLED. 



HOW A FRIEND WAS KILLED. 



There is among the remembrances of my life as a rail- 
road man, one of such sadness, that I never think of it 
without a sigh. Every man, unless he be so morose that 
he cannot keep a dog, has his particular friends ; those in 
whom he confides, and to whom he is " always cheerful ; 
whose society he delights in, and the possibility of whose 
death, he will never allow himself to admit. 

Such a friend had I in George H . We were 

inseparable — both of us unmarried ; we would always 
manage to board together, and on all possible occasions to 
be together. Did George's engine lay up for the Sunday 
at one end of the road, and mine at the other, one of us 
was sure to go over the road " extra," in order that we 
might be together. 

(203) 



204 HOW A FRIEND WAS KILLED. 

George and I differed in many respects, but more es- 
pecially in this, that whereas I was one of the " fast " 
school of runners, who are never so contented with run- 
ning as when mounted on a fast engine, with an express 
train, and it behind time. George preferred a slow train, 
where, as he said, his occupation was " killing time," not 
"making" it. So while I had the "Baltic," a fast en- 
gine, with drivers six feet and a half in diameter, and 
usually ran express trains, George had the " Essex," a 
freight engine, with four feet drivers. 

One Saturday night I took the last run north, and was 
to " lay over " with my engine for the Sunday at the 
northern terminus of the road, until two o'clock Monday 
P. M. George had to run the •' Night Freight" down 
that night, and as we wished particularly to be together 
the next day, I concluded to go " down the line" with 
him. Starting time came, and off we started. I rode 
for awhile in the " caboose," as the passenger car attach- 
ed to a freight train is called, but as the night was warm 
and balmy, the moon shining brightly, tinging with silvery 
white the great fleecy clouds that swept through the heav- 
en, like monstrous floating islands of snow drifting over 
the fathomless waters of the sea, I went out and rode 



HOW A FRIEND WAS KILLED. 205 

with George on the engine. The night was indeed most 
beautiful, the moonlight shimmering across the river, 
which the wind disturbed and broke into many ripples, 
made it to glow and shine like a sea of molten silver. 
The trees beside the track waved and beckoned their 
leafy tops, looking sombre and weird in the half-darkness 
of the night. The vessels we saw upon the river, gliding 
before the freshening breeze, w^ith their signal lights glim- 
mering dimly, and the occasional steamers with light 
streaming from every window, and the red light of their 
fires casting an unearthly glare upon the waters ; these 
all combined to make the scene spread before us, as we 
rushed shrieking and howling over the road, one of un- 
excelled beauty. We both gazed at it, and said that if 
all scenes in the life of a railroad man were as beautiful 
as this we would wish no other life. 

But something ailed George's engine. Her pumps 
would not work. After tinkering v/ith them awhile, he 
asked the fireman if there was plenty of water in the tank ; 
the fireman said there was, but to make assurance doubly 
sure I went and looked, and lo ! there was not a drop ^ 
Before passing through the station George had asked the 
fireman if there was plenty of water. He replied that 



206 HOW A FRIEND WAS KILLED. 

there was ; so George had run through the station, it not 
being a regular stopping place for the train, and here we 
were in a fix. George thought he could run from where 
we had stopped to the next water station ; so he cut 'oose 
from the train and started. We had stopped on the out- 
side of a long curve, to the other end of which we could 
see ; it was fully a half mile, but the view was straight 
across the water—- a bay of the river sweeping in there, 
around which the track went. 

In about twenty minutes after George had left we saw 
him coming around the farthest point of the curve ; the 
brakeman at once took his station with his light at the end 
of the cars, to show George precisely where the train 
stood. The engine came swiftly towards us, and I soon 
saw he was getting so near that he could not stop without 
a collision, unless he reversed his engine at once ; so I 
snatched the lamp from out the brakeman's hands, and 
swung it wildly across the track, but it was of no avail. 
On came the engine, not slackening her speed the least. 
We saw somebody jump from the fireman's side, and in the 
instant of time allowed us, we looked to see George jump, 
but no ! he stuck to his post, and there came a shock as 
of a mountain falling. The heavy freight engine running, 



HOW A FRIEND WAS KILLED. 207 

as it was, at as high a rate of speed as it could make, 
crashed into the train ; thirteen cars were piled into a 
mass of ruins, the like of which is seldom seen. The 
tender was turned bottom side up, with the engine lying 
atop of it, on its side. The escaping steam shrieked and 
howled; the water, pouring in on to the fire, crackled and 
hissed; the stock (sheep and cattle) that were in the cars 
bellowed and bleated in their agony, and it seemed as if 
all the legions of hell were there striving to make a pan- 
demonium of that quiet place by the river-side. As soon 
as we recovered from the shock and got used to the din 
which at first struck terror to our hearts — and I think no 
sound can be more terrible than the bellowing of a lot of 
cattle that are crushed in a railroad smash-up — we went to 
work to see if George was alive, and to get him out, dead 
or alive. We found him under the tender, but one side 
of the tank lay across his body, so that he could not move. 
We got rails and lifted and pried, until we raised the ten- 
der and got him out. We took one of the doors from the 
wrecked cars, laid it beside the track, and made a bed on 
it with our coats and the cushions from the caboose ; for 
poor George said he wanted to pass the few^ moments left 
him of earth beneath the open sky, and with the cool 



208 HOW A FRIEND WAS KILLED. 

breezu to fan his cheek. Of course we dispatched a man 
to the nearest station for aid. and to telegraph from there 
for an engine ; but it was late at night, everybody was 
asleep, and it was more than three hours before any one 
arrived, and all that time George lingered, occasionally 
whispering a word to me as I bent over him and moisten- 
ed his lips. 

He told me while lying there the reason why he did 
not stop sooner. Something had got loose on the inside 
throttle gearing, and he could not shut off steam, nor, 
owing to some unaccountable complicity of evil, could he 
reverse his engine. So on he had to come, pell-mell, 
and both of them were killed; for the fireman had jump- 
ed on some rocks, and must have died instantly, as he 
was most horribly mangled. 

The night wind moaned through the wreck, the drip- 
ping water yet hissed upon the still hot iron of the en- 
gine, the waves of the river gurgled and rippled among 
the rocks of the shore, and an occasional bellow of agony 
was heard from amidst the cattle cars, where all the rest 
of the hands were at work releasing the poor creatures ; 
but I sat there, in sad and solemn silence, waiting for him 
to die that had been as a brother to me. A.t last, just as 



HOW A FRIEND WAS KILLED. 209 

we heard the whistle of the approaching engine, and just 
as the rising sun had begun to gild and bespangle the 
purpling east, George opened his eyes, gave my hand a 
faint grasp, and was no more. I stood alone with the 
dead man I had loved so in life, but from whom death 
had now separated me. 

14 



AN UNROMANTIC HERO. 



AN UNROMANTIC HERO. 



Those who have traveled much on the Little Miami 
Railroad, must have noticed a little old fellow, with grizzled 
locks and an unpoetical stoop of the shoulders, who whisks 
about his engine with all the activity of a cat, and whom 
the railroad men all call "Uncle Jimmy." That is old 
Jimmy Wiggins, an engineer of long standing and well 
known. I believe Uncle Jimmy learned the machinists' 
trade with Eastwick & Harrison, in Philadelphia ; at all 
events he has been railroading for a long time, and has 
been always noted for his carefulness and vigilance. Let 
me attempt to describe him. He is about five feet four 
inches in height, stoop-shouldered and short-legged. His 
hair is iron-gray, and his face would be called any thing 
but beautiful. He has, though, a clear blue eye that looks 

(213) 



214 AN UNROMANTIC HERO. 

straight and firmly into jours with an honest and never- 
flinching expression, that at once convinces you that he is 
a " game " man. Not very careful about his dress is old 
Jimmy ; grease spots abound on all his clothing, and his 
hands are usually begrimed with the marks of his trade. 
In short, Uncle Jimmy is any thing but a romantic-looking 
fellow, and a novelist would hesitate long before taking 
him as the hero of a romance ; but the old man is a hero, 
and under that rough, yet placid exterior, there beats a 
heart that never cools, and a will that never flinches. We 
go back into the history of the past ages to find our heroes, 
and them we almost worship, but I question whether the 
whole history of '^ the world furnishes a better example of 
self-sacrificing heroism, than this same rough and unro- 
mantic looking Jimmy Wiggins. It is not the casket 
that gives value to the jewel ; it is the jewel gives value to 
all. So with Uncle Jimmy ; rough he looks, but the heart 
he has makes him an honor to the race, and deserving of 
our praise. I'll tell you now why I think so. 

Uncle Jimmy was running a train that laid by on the 
switch at Spring Valley for the Up Express to pass. He 
got there on time, and the express being a little behind 
time, the old man took advantage of the time to oil around. 



AN UNROMANTIC HERO. 215 

The whistle of the up train was heard, but he paid no heed 
thereto, for it was to pass without stopping. The fellow 
who attended to the switch stood there at his post. Uncle 
Jimmy was coolly at work, when a shriek from the con- 
ductor called his attention, and looking up, he saw what 
would frighten and unnerve almost any one. The stupid 
fool at the switch had thrown it wide open, and the express 
was already on the branch, coming too at the rate of thirty 
miles an hour — thirty feet in the beat of your pulse — and 
his train loaded with passengers stood there stock-still. 
That was a time to try the stuff a man was made of; ordi- 
nary men would have shrunk from the task, and run from 
the scene. Your lily-handed, romantic gentry would have 
failed then, but homely old Jimmy Wiggins rose superior 
to the position, and, unromantic though he looks, proved a 
hero. No flinch in him. What though two hundred tons 
of matter was being hurled at him, fifty feet in the second ? 
— what though the chances for death for him were a thou- 
sand to one for safety? No tremor in that brave old 
heart, no nerveless action in that strong arm. He leaped 
on to the engine, and with his charge met the shock ; but 
his own engine was reversed, and under motion backwards 
when the other train struck it. It all took but an instant 



216 AN UNROM ANTIC HERO. 

of time, but in that moment old Jimmy Wiggins con- 
centrated more of true courage than many a man gets 
into in a Hfetime of seventy years. The collision was 
frightful ; iron and wood were twisted and jammed together 
as if they were rotten straw. Charley Hunt, the engineer 
of the other train, was instantly killed ; passengers were 
wounded ; terror, fright and pain held sway. Death was 
there, and all stood back appalled at what had occurred ; 
yet all shuddered more to think of what would have been 
the result had Old Jimmy's engine stood still, and all felt 
a trembling anxiety for his fate, for surely, thought they, 
'' in that wreck his life must have been the sacrifice to 
his bravery ;" but out of the mass, as cool, as calm as when 
running on a straight track, crawled Uncle Jimmy, 
unhurt. He still runs on the same road, and long may 
his days be, and happy. 



THE DUTIES OF AN ENGOEER. 



THE DUTIES OF AN ENGINEER. 



Those unacquainted with the duties of an engineer, 
are apt to think that they are extremely hght, and re- 
quire him simply to sit upon his seat and, shutting off 
or letting on the steam, regulate the speed of his engine. 
Although this is a part of the duty, still it is but a small 
portion, and for the benefit of those of my readers who 
are not posted on the matter, I will briefly state a few 
of the things he has to think of. 

Say we take the engine lying in the shop cold, and an 
order comes for him to go out on the road. There is no 
water in the boiler ; he must see that it is filled up to the 
proper level, and that the fire is started. He must know 
beforehand that no piece of the machinery is broken or 
loosened, so as to endanger the engine. To know this, 

(219) 



220 THE DUTIES OF AN ENGINEER. 

he must make a personal inspection of every part of the 
engine — trucks, wheels, drivers, cranks, rods, valves, gear- 
ing, coupling, flues, scales, journals, driving-boxes, throttle 
gear, oil cups ; in short, every thing about the engine must 
be seen to bj him personally. He must know that every 
journal, every joint on the whole machine is in proper 
order to receive the oil necessary to lubricate it, for they 
will each and all receive a pretty severe strain in his com- 
ing ride, and, unless well oiled, will be pretty apt to get 
warm. He must know whether the flues are tight, or 
whether there are any leaks in the boiler to cause him 
trouble, or render it necessary for him to carry a light 
pressure of steam. He must see that there is water in 
the tank, and wood upon the tender; that he has upon the 
engine the tools usually necessary in case of a break- 
down, such as hammers, chisels, wrenches, tongs, bolts, 
nuts, coupling-pins, plugs for the flues in case one should 
burst, chains, extra links, jack-screws, crow, and pinch- 
bars, an axe or hatchet ; waste or rags, oil, tallow for the 
cylinders, and material for packing any joint that may give 
out. All this he must see to and know before he starts. 
And then, when steam is up, he can go. Now he must 
closely watch his time-card, and run so as to make the 



THE DUTIES OF AN ENGINEER. 221 

various- stations on time. He must know that his watch 
is correct and in good order. He must see closely to his 
pumps that they work right, and that the water keeps at 
the proper level in the boiler. He must watch the scales 
that the pressure of the steam does not get too great, also 
the working of his engine. To the exhausts of the steam 
his ear must be as sensitive as a musical composer would 
be to a discord, for by it he can tell much of the condition 
of his engine, the set and play of the valves, and the con- 
dition of the many joints in the working machinery. At 
the same time he must keep the strictest watch of the 
track ahead of him, ready-nerved for any emergency that 
can possibly arise ; it may be a broken rail, cattle on the 
track, some stubborn, hasty fool striving to cross the track 
ahead of him, a broken bridge, washed out culvert, a train 
broken down ; or it may be some stranger frantically 
swinging his hands, and, in every manner possible, endeav- 
oring to attract his attention. Something may happen to 
his train or his engine, and he must keep the strictest watch 
of both ; his hands must be ready to blow the whistle, shut 
off steam or reverse his engine, on the instant intimation 
of danger, for his engine gets over the ground at a rapid 
rate, and nothing but a cool nerve and stout arm can stop 



222 THE DUTIES OF AN ENGINEER. 

it, perhaps not these. And if any thing does happen ren- 
dering it necessary for him to stop, he cannot say to any- 
body, "Here, do this;" he must go at it himself; and 
oftentimes, though it be but a trivial thing, it will tax his 
ingenuity to the utmost to repair it. Thus he goes on 
every day, be it clear or cloudy, whether summer breeze 
fill the air with balm, or the chill winds of winter make the 
road-bed solid as the rock, and the iron of the rails and 
wheels as brittle as glass ; whether the rain, pelting down, 
makes of every tiny brook a torrent or the drifted snow 
blockades the track, and his engine has to plunge into the 
chilly mass ; through it all his eye must never cease its 
vigil, nor his arm lose its cunning. In cold weather he 
must watch the pumps that they do not freeze while stand- 
ing at the stations, or the wheels get fractured by the 
frost ; and, in cold or warm weather, he must keep watch 
of every place where there is the slightest friction, and 
keep it well oiled. At every station where time is allowed, 
he must give the whole engine a 6\ose inspection, lest some 
little part be out of order, and endangering some larger 
and more important piece of the machinery. At last, 
after this his journey for the day is ended, his work is by 
no means done. He must again inspect his engine, and 



THE DUTIES OF AN ENGINEER. 223 

if there is anj thing out of order, so much that he can- 
not without assistance repair it, he must apply at head- 
quarters for the necessary aid. But there are a hundred 
little matters that he can attend to himself ; these he must 
seh to and do. The friction and enormous strain neces- 
sarily wears the brasses of the journals, and creates what 
he calls *' lost motion," that is, the journal moves in its 
box loosely without causing the required motion in the part 
of the machinery with which it is connected ; this he must 
remedy by various expedients. The spring- packing of the 
piston may have worn loose, and require to be set out ; 
some one of the numerous steam joints may be leaking, 
and these he must repack. Some of the flues may also be 
leaking ; If so, he must tighten them ; or there may be a 
crack in the boiler that leaks which can be remedied by 
caulking ; this he must do. The grate-bars may be broken 
or disarranged; he must enter the fire-box and arrange 
them. The packing in the pumps may have worn so as 
to render their operation imperfect, or the valves may be 
out of order, or the strainer between the tank and the 
pump may be clogged ; if either or all be the case, he must 
take down the pump and rectify the matter. The smoke- 
stack also may be clogged with cinders, or the netting 



224 THE DUTIES OF AN ENGINEER. 

over it maj be choked so as to impede the draught ; if 
sOj he must remedy it, or see that it is done. Some of 
the orifices through which oil is let on to the machinery 
may be clogged or too open ; these he must see to. One 
or more of the journal-boxes of the wheels may need re- 
packing, and he must do it. An eccentric may have slip- 
ped a little, or a valve-rod been stripped, or a wheel be de- 
fective, or a tire on the driving-wheel may be loose, and 
have to be bolted on or reset. A gauge-cock may be clog- 
ged, a leaf of a spring broke, or the boiler may be very 
dirty and want washing out. Any of these things or a 
hundred others may have happened, and require his at- 
tention, which must on all occasions be given to it; for 
each part, however simple, goes to make up a whole, that, 
if out of repair, will render imminent a fearful loss of life 
and limb. 

Thus the engineer rides every day, having the same 
care, and facing the same dangers, with the same responsi- 
bility resting on him. Who then shall say that, though 
he be grimy and greasy, rough and uncouth, given to to- 
bacco-chewing, and sometimes to hard swearing, he is of 
no consequence to the world ? Who shall blame him too 
severely if sometimes he makes an error ? 






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